I was craving to read this book from the start, when I first picked up Agatha Christie, but I wanted to read Poirot books in order, so I finally got there.
I think, Im kinda overwhelmed rn, and that's probably why i cant say for sure if I liked the book or not. It felt impressive and not impressive at the same time!
Also, my sister was talking bout this book, cause apparently there was 2017 adaptation that got really popular, and Im probably gonna watch it!
And so, obviously I didnt guess the killer. More like I couldn't have possibly guessed all of them. Or even if I was had suspects that I thought were killers, I couldnt explain them at all.
Im gonna reread the book for sure. Im sure Im gonna notice the fake stories and clues more clearly when I do. I didnt even think about there being SO many killers, yes, I thought maybe, just maybe there might be several people, but not freaking all of them! I was sitting with my jaw on the floor when Poirot kept calling them by their past jobs or roles in America.
There was a funny thing of me thinking the suspects(when I wasnt even close to the truth), and I wrote down bout 5 suspects and thought "nah, too much suspects, I should think bout fewer people", boy, i was so far away!
So, my biggest suspects were M.Bouc and the doctor. Idk, I kept waiting for Poirot to talk bout their alibis, cause they were least suspicious, but it never happened. Bad guess yeah, but Im not a smart person. Others were like the swiss woman and Elena, but as I said before I was right, but I didnt figure out how they couldve done it.
Phew, the book was entertaining and enjoyable for sure. I think for this many characters, I definitely need to watch the adaptations to have better picture, its like describtions werent enough, i NEEDED to see their faces.
The ending was ok. Im not a fan of AC fast endings where its only the little descriptions of the aftermath or them ending with some kinda quote. Well, really satisfying though. Victim deserved it, so its just pretty satisfying imagining him being a ghost somewhere and figuring out the whole train killed him and the detective, that didnt agree helping him earlier decided to hide the truth, cause thats what scumbags deserve!
But I feel like there being so many participants had so many potential? Cant really think bout the them though, maybe like them accusing Poirot of the murder with bunch of clies?
Welp, im done. This is the last book I bought for now. And... im short on money. Gonna have to wait to read another!

The next morning, Himiko was awakened by a delighted scream. She shot up in her bed and saw Tenko dancing around the room.
"Nyeh...Tenko? W-What's going on?" Himiko asked sleepily, rubbing her eyes.
"La-la-la-la-la-laaaaaa!!" Tenko sang. Then, she stopped at Himiko's bed and gripped Himiko's shoulders like a crazy person. "Himiko! I ate your Snoozydoodles right before bed, like you told me to, and I just had the most amazing dream!!"
"What was it about?" Himiko asked.
"There were no degenerate males in the world! And all the girls made me their queen!" Tenko sighed. "It was perfect utopia! A utopia...for girls! The sky was pastel pink! The clouds were extra puffy and white! The ocean was also pink and glittery, and all the food we ate was pink, like strawberry cake, strawberry ice cream, strawberry cupcakes, and strawberry milk! And girls of every shape, size, and color were everywhere! Not a degenerate male in sight!"
"Nyeh...a dream filled with just girls sounds like a nightmare," Himiko muttered. "Most problems I had with bullying was from catty, popular girls."
"W-What?! There's no way that's true, Himiko!" Tenko cried. "Maybe they were males in disguise!"
"No, I don't think so," Himiko shook her head. "Plus, a world with just girls is going to lead to extinction."
"Not in my dream!" Tenko exclaimed happily. "Girls were born from 'Girl Flowers!'"
"Nyeeeh...girl flowers? " Himiko asked, raising a brow.
"Yeah! You plant a pink seed into the ground, and when it grows, the petals open up and reveal a beautiful baby girl inside!" Tenko gushed. "It was so amazing! Girls, girls, girls everywhere!" Himiko wrinkled her nose.
"I bet it smelled like fish in that world," she muttered.
"Fish?! Why would it smell like-...oh! Hahahaha!" Tenko said. "No, no, Himiko! We didn't have to deal with that because there was need for it! All the girls came from 'Girl Flowers,' remember?"
"Oh...I guess that's true," Himiko replied, shaking her head at the absurdity. Suddenly, there was a knock at their door. Tenko went over to open it. Standing on the other side were Tsumugi, Angie, Maki, Miu, Gonta, Ryoma, and Kaito.
"Hey! What are you all doing here?!" Tenko demanded. "Especially you degenerates!" Ignoring Tenko, they all rushed right in and crowded around Himiko's bed. Himiko nervously pulled her blanket up to her face.
"Nyeh...c-can I help you guys?" she whimpered.
"I had the most wonderful dream because of your cookies, Himiko!" Angie chirped. "Everyone in the whole wide world became a follower of Atua, and was welcomed into his kingdom!"
"I had a dream that I finally went to space!" Kaito exclaimed. "And I became the world's best astronaut for discovering a lot of alien civilizations! Everyone voted for me to be president of Earth!"
"There's no way such a title exists," Maki said, shaking her head.
"Well, maybe not in real life, but that's how it was in my dream!" Kaito said. "But, anyways, what was your dream about, Maki Roll?" Everyone turned to Maki, curious to what kind of dream she had. She blushed.
"I'd...rather not talk about it," she grumbled. "It's too dumb."
"Just tell us already, Judge Moody!" Miu spat impatiently. Maki glared at her, then sighed.
"Fine..." she said. "I had a dream where I wasn't an orphan, and I had real, actual parents who loved me. And I was happy and nice to everyone, and I didn't have to worry about being an assassin and stealing peoples' lives." Everyone stared in stunned silence at her. Maki sighed gloomily. "See? I told you it was dumb."
"Geez, that's not dumb at all," Ryoma said. "Sounds similar to my dream, though, I would agree if you had said that wishing for it to happen would be dumb."
"What do you mean, Ryoma?" asked Tsumugi.
"It's pointless to dream or wish for something that will never come true," Ryoma explained. "Even though my dream was...surprisingly delightful, it also felt like a punch in the gut. Hmph...I don't know whether to call that dream a blessing, or a curse."
"What was your dream about?" Kaito asked.
"Well, I'll tell you, but it is depressing," Ryoma warned. "My girlfriend hadn't been killed, and I was back home with her and my cat. And I didn't even play tennis, I wasn't even an Ultimate student. I was a regular guy."
"That doesn't sound depressing at all!" Kaito said.
"But, the fact that it'll never come true is what makes it depressing," Ryoma said. "That's why I say, dreams like that are pointless. It's better to forget about the past and move on with your life"
"Bullshit!" Kaito exclaimed. "C'mon, man, stop whining about how depressing your life is! You say that wishing for the impossible is dumb and it was all in the past, or whatever, so why the hell are you still depressed? If you truly believed that you should move on, you should stop worryin' about the past and look to the future with bright hopes! That goes for you, too, Maki!"
"What? Why me?" Maki asked.
"It's true that you can't change the past, and maybe wishing for it to change is dumb," Kaito explained. "But, if you're still depressed about what happened in the past, it means you can't let go of what happened! You're not moving on! Moving on is accepting what happened, and doing whatever you can to make your life better! Instead of wishing to undo the past, wish for a brighter future! That goes for all of you!" The room fell silent as they stared at Kaito.
"So, anyway, my dream was about me actually becoming the characters that I cosplay!" Tsumugi said, breaking the silence.
"Hey! Don't just ignore my inspirational speech!" Kaito exclaimed angrily.
"It really wasn't all that inspiring," Tsumugi said, haughtily waving him off.
"Seriously! Nobody asked for your opinion, Mahatma Ghandeez Nuts!" Miu said to Kaito.
"W-What?! " Kaito exclaimed.
"Ha! In my dream, I was the world's best inventor!" Miu said grandly. "With my inventions, I was able to rid the world of starvation, war, violence, famine, and all that other bad shit! And everyone loved me! All the guys on the planet wanted to bang me, and my boobs grew a size bigger!"
"Um...can you not share your dreams?" Tsumugi said. "I feel like every time you speak, I want to do unspeakably horrible things to you."
"Shut the hell up, you four-eyed, lamebrain otaku! " Miu spat. "You're just jealous because you have two deflated balloons for chest!"
"Um...can Gonta share dream, now?" Gonta asked.
"Yes, Gonta, go ahead," Tsumugi replied, eager to not have to listen to Miu anymore.
"Gonta was king of bugs!" Gonta replied. "Everyone in world loved bugs, and loved King Gonta!"
"Tuh...that dream sounds stupid as shit!" Miu scoffed.
"Oh! G-Gonta sorry..." Gonta apologized with a hurt expression.
"You don't have to apologize to her, Gonta," Tsumugi said, glaring at Miu.
"You want someone to apologize to, apologize to all of us for wastin' our time!" Miu spat to Gonta.
"Hey! Cut it out, Miu! Stop yellin' at him!" Kaito yelled.
"Don't tell me what to do, Luke Skyfucker!" Miu shouted back.
"Stop callin' me names!" Kaito yelled back.
"H-Hey! Why everyone fighting?" Gonta asked. "Gonta not mean to start fight!"
"Leave it up to a degenerate male to start a fight!" Tenko growled, glaring at Gonta.
"If you guys don't stop fighting, Atua will unleash his holy wrath upon you all," Angie warned with a creepy grin.
"Nobody asked you, you kooky cult bitch!" Miu said, swatting at Angie. "All y'all are just jealous because my dream was better that yours!"
"Excuse me?!" Tsumugi cried.
"Yeah! Obviously mine was the best one!" Kaito exclaimed.
"You're plainly wrong! Mine was the best one!" Tsumugi said.
"No, it was mine!" Tenko shouted.
"Nuh-uuuhhhh...it was mi-iiiine," Angie said cheerfully.
"Um...Gonta thinks Gonta's was pretty good," Gonta said diplomatically.
"Sheesh...I can't believe everyone is getting so worked up over this," Ryoma said.
"Seriously. It's stupid to be fighting over something like this," Maki agreed.
"Well, I don't think it's stupid at all!" Tsumugi said.
"Yeah! In fact, I want another dream!" Miu said. Everyone turned to Himiko, who had been staring at them in horrified silence. "You better whip us up some more cookies, ya little midget, or else!"
"Well, um...you'll have to wait next weekend," Himiko replied in a small voice.
"I ain't waitin' that long!" Miu spat. "So, chop, chop! Get to makin' those damn cookies right now!"
"Nyeh, but...what about school?" Himiko asked.
"Himiko's right, we need to get ready for school," Maki said. But...I think I'd also like more of the cookies." Everyone turned to her in surprise.
"Wait...really, Maki?" Tsumugi asked.
"It was...a really good-tasting cookie...that's all," Maki mumbled, fiddling with one of her pigtails.
"Or is it because you liked your dream?" Angie teased. Maki frowned at her.
"Shut up," she said.
"I...agree with Maki," Ryoma said. "I want to see if I would have a different dream. One that's more...sensible."
"A dream that's...sensible? " Tsumugi repeated.
"Yeah...one that keeps me away from my past," Ryoma explained. "Do you think you can do that for me, Himiko?"
"Nyeh...okay," Himiko said. She knew exactly how to do just that.
Part Twelve
"What was all that ruckus about earlier, Monkey Buns?" Kokichi asked as he and Himiko walked together to school.
"Nyeh...just as I was hoping, my Snoozydoodles gave everyone dreams," Himiko replied. "But, when everyone that I gave them to was talking about their dreams, things got a little out of hand."
"Was that the effect of the magic?" Kokichi asked.
"Well, no...that was because Miu was being her usual, annoying self, and then Tsumugi said something, then Miu snapped back at her, then everything sorta erupted into chaos," Himiko explained.
"Didn't you say a while ago that the dream powder can be addictive?" Kokichi asked. Himiko sighed.
"Yeah...even small doses of the dream powder might cause someone to be addicted," she said. "But, it works really well, and that's why I wanted to put it in my cookies."
"Hmm...I hope you know what you're doing, Himiko," Kokichi said.
"Well...I have another idea where the dream powder might be not as addictive...but the effects will be just as good?" Himiko said with a bit of uncertainty. Then, she blushed. "I...used this method to dream about you before we started dating." Kokichi raised his eyebrows at her.
"Really?!" he exclaimed, grinning.
"Yeah...I had to steal your hair while you were asleep to do it, though," Himiko said quietly.
"Yeah, that's not creepy at all," Kokichi teased, wrapping his arm around Himiko's waist, and giving her a kiss on the cheek. A mischievous grin crossed his lips. "I wanna know what this other method is."
***
Friday night had arrived. Kokichi was with Himiko in her secret magic room. She was flipping through the spellbook titled, "Inside the Magical Mind." Himiko showed Kokichi the chapter "Build the Perfect Dream," specifically, the romance section.
"Nyeh...these are potions I used to have dreams about you," she explained to him, and pointed to the different dreams. "This is the 'sweet love dream' potion, the 'spicy love dream' potion, and the 'hot and steamy love dream' potion." Kokichi read the description of each dream, his impish grin growing larger across his face as he read.
"So, you drank all of those potions?" he asked, wiggling his eyebrows at her.
"Well, one night, I drank the first one, then the next night, I drank the second," Himiko said. "I secretly gave the last one to Miu, because I was too scared to drink it myself."
"Ugh! You gave it to Miu?! " Kokichi exclaimed in disgust.

"Well...I-I'd feel dirty having the last dream!" Himiko stammered.
"Well, then, why'd you make that potion in the first place?" Kokichi asked.
"Because I was curious!" Himiko said. "But, then my curiosity was replaced by fear and feeling dirty, so I gave it to Miu. It's a good thing I did, too, because..."
"Cuz, why...?" Kokichi asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Because she was doing very...dirty things with you," Himiko replied. "Yeah...we were having our monthly slumber party, and in the middle of it all, Miu was dreaming and...nyeh...screaming."
"AAAUUUUGGHHHH!!! GROSS!!" Kokichi exclaimed, covering his ears. "I don't wanna do it with her!! "
"Well, she did say that you said that to her in her dream," Himiko said. "But, you only did it to get her to shut up because she kept begging you."
"Ew, I don't care," Kokichi muttered. "There's no excuse to condone bestiality." Himiko sighed and gave Kokichi a playful swat. Kokichi laughed, then eyed her flirtatiously. "Besides, my body only belongs to you...Himiko." Himiko blushed and lowered her head. Every time he said her name like that, it got her heart pumping like crazy. "My body...is your body." Kokichi lifted her chin to turn her head to him. "Mi cuerpo...es su cuerpo, y mi corazón...es su corazón."
"Ohhhh...Kokichiiii...!" Himiko gurgled with delight, biting her lip. She didn't know Spanish, but he made it sound so good. Kokichi leaned in to give her a passionate kiss.
"Okay, that's enough!" he said, stopping the kiss abruptly.
"W-What?! Wait! No! Moooore...!" Himiko pouted, tugging on Kokichi's sleeve. "I want mooore."
"Nuh-uh, Monkey Buns. Tomorrow is another cookie sale, so we can't get distracted right now. We gotta make these cookies like Hiro...baked! " Kokichi said.
"O-kaaaayyy..." Himiko pouted.
"M'kay, so how are gonna do this, HimiCocoa Bean?" Kokichi asked.
"Well...what genre of potion should I make?" Himiko asked. "There's comedy, action-adventure, romance, horror, fantasy, mystery, aaannnd...lots of other stuff."
"Comedy!" Kokichi said. "Everyone needs a good laugh!"
"Nyeh...okay," Himiko said, then turned to the comedy section of the chapter.
"So, you'll just pour whatever potion you make into the cookie batter, right? And mix it up?" Kokichi asked.
"Yup, that's right," Himiko nodded.
"Aaaalrighty, then! Welp, do your thang, babe!" Kokichi said, kissing Himiko's cheek. Himiko giggled and read the comedy section:
~COMEDY:~
Laughter is the best medicine, as they say! So, why not have it in your dreams? After all, there's nothing cuter than someone laughing in their sleep! Whether you're in the mood for some gut-busting, slap-happy humor, wild, crazy humor, or even just simple, laughable jokes, every hilarious dream is welcome in clown town!
Slapstick comedy dream: A dream where tripping, punching, bashing, slapping, falling, and everything in between is considered more funny than horrifying! If you fancy a dream like that, give Slapstick comedy dream a whirl!
Boil water in small cauldron. Once water is boiled, add 1/2 cup of dream powder, 1 tsp of pepper for an extra kick, 1 tsp of cinnamon for an extra bite, 1 tsp of dragon spice for an extra punch, 3 petals of the Laffodil flower, and a 3/4 cup of sunlight for some lighthearted fun. Mix contents until water becomes a different color. Pour contents into a potion bottle. Add sleep powder before consuming. Drink and enjoy!
Fun-loving comedy dream: You can't always watch comedy, you have to experience it, too! If you feel like going on a funny, fun-filled adventure full of laughter, then the fun-loving comedy dream is just what you're looking for!
Boil water in small cauldron. Once water is boiled, add 1/2 cup of dream powder, 3/4 cup of elven sparkles for whimsy, 1 cup of pink polka dot pond water, 1 tsp of sugar, 5 petals of the Laffodil flower, and 3/4 cup of sunlight. Mix contents until water becomes a different color. Pour contents into a potion bottle. Add sleep powder before consuming. Drink and enjoy!
Joker dream: Want a dream with less gut busting, and more on the relaxed side? Then, a Joker dream is prefect the perfect comfort comedy dream for you!
Boil water in small cauldron. Once water is boiled, add 1/2 cup of dream powder, 1 tsp of funny honey, 1 petal of the Laffodil flower, a pinch of jesterly ginseng powder, and 3/4 cup of sunlight. Mix contents until water becomes a different color. Pour contents into a potion bottle. Add sleep powder before consuming. Drink and enjoy!
"Nyeh...which one should I pick?" Himiko asked. Kokichi scanned the page.
"Hmm...why not all of them?" he suggested. "You can make three batches of cookies, and pour the different potions into each one! Actually, it's way more interesting that way, since people will get to randomly choose their comedy dream cookies!"
"I guess you're right," Himiko said. She got to work, whipping up all three potions. "Nyeh...all done!"
"Do you wanna go to D.I.C.E. headquarters and bake them there again?" Kokichi asked.
"Yeah, but...let's take the short way," Himiko said. "I'm already tired from making these potions." Before Kokichi could ask what she meant, Himiko snapped her fingers, and they magically appeared at the abandoned insane asylum serving as D.I.C.E. headquarters.

I had a barista yell in my face and I felt really threatened. Since it was his first offense he didn't get fired but is on his last leg. The incident was resolved and we're "legally" allowed to work together again. My store manager said I won't have to work with him and I will NEVER have to be alone with him.
Welp, scheduling issues happened and it's him and I closing alone together for 2 hours. And I'm a shift so I can't dip out.
My store manager can't help me, none of the other shifts. No baristas will come in and I've contacted another store manager down the street with no luck
Nothings happened so I even left my DM a voice mail. I told him and my SM that went the last barista leaves at 4, I'm leaving with her. I don't feel safe with him and I won't work alone with him.
I don't know what the point of this post it. I just need to rant and ask for positive feedback. I don't call out a lot and I'm damn good at my job. But will I get fired? After the incident and everything in between, maybe it's better I don't work at Starbucks anymore.

Okay, first, just to let everyone know, GOLDEN EGGS CAN DAMAGE NORMAL BOSSES. THIS IS USEFUL FOR TANKY BOSSES LIKE THE DRIZZLER. ALSO, THE GRIZZCO SLOSHER AND SPLATANA HAVE PEIRCING PROPERITIES, WHICH MAKE IT SO THAT YOU CAN KILL FLYFISH BY SHOOTING THE PILOT IN THE MIDDLE. KEEP IN MIND, THE SPLATANA CAN ONLY PEIRCE WITH A FULLY CHARGED SHOT. Now, onto the main thing:
Cohozuna: The weapon with the high DPS should be fighting this guy with your weapon, sure, you can kill bosses and all that stuff, but it's advised that you use your weapon to deal damage instead of eggs. The Cohozuna pretty much doesn't have any weak point or unique thing, it just kind of stomps people, still, if anyone has extra tips, let me know in the replies.
Horrorboros: This guy operates similar to a steelhead. It attacks with a ball of growing ink, which is also its weak point. Try to aim at the weak point, I remember it deals twice the damage as opposed to just aiming at its body. When the ball explodes due to team ink, it also deals quite a bit of damage. If you use this method efficiently, you can kill the Horrorboros in about 7 ink ball booyah bombs.
Megalodontia: The big shark has a giant red spot on its body as a weak point, aim at it. The spot is opposite to where the eyes are facing, and it always faces the direction of where it goes from the Megalodontia's old attack to the new one. The Megalodontia's attacks can also kill other enemies. Make sure you have a clear path out of the shark's attack range so you can avoid being chomped.
Welp, that's all I know, provide extra info in the replies if you have it, correct me for things I get wrong, and always remember, dying is bad, lessers can get bad, and you should always try to go for stingers, flyfish and big shots, they can be a run killer if you have too many.

So I just recently posted and said the BP relationship was civil and not high conflict, but I don't think I can say that any more.
A while back, SD10 casually mentioned moving to a vacation-type place many states and hours away by plane. When DH asked BM about what SD said, she said no they had just visited part of her BFs family there, they weren't planning to move, she had no idea where SD got that idea, you know how kids are fanciful and all. A later followup got the same response.
Welp, all that was a big fat lie. Many months later, she has just informed DH that she has booked a mediator for a date she picked next month and he needs to show up to talk about her move to [that vacation place] this summer.
This move is insane, and there is nothing but downsides for SD.
BM is giving up a union job with seniority and good benefits, and we haven't heard she has anything, much less something better, lined up in that new place. Where, by the way, pay is generally low, jobs are few, and cost of living is super duper high. How BM and her BF are going to afford any decent place for SD and themselves is a mystery.
BM is going to yank SD10 (soon to be 11) out of the school she's been in for years and where all her friends are, and move her into a very poorly rated school system that is also notoriously unwelcoming to outsiders, right at one of the toughest transition ages for girls. I moved at that age and it was absolutely hell being the new girl right when girls are getting cliquey and mean.
BM is moving SD away from her entire family. And I mean entire. Right now, the following live within 20 minutes to an hour: both bio parents. SD's half sister. Grandparents from both sides. A passel of aunts, uncles, and cousins from both sides. A set of cousins that she's grown up with so closely they are practically siblings (they spend 3 weekends out of 4 together and have since they were little little kids!). In the new place? A couple members of BM's BF's extended family, which SD has met maybe once, on vacation last year. None of SD's family are within less than a 6 hour flight of where they are going.
Plus! BM relies heavily on those family and friends for care for SD during her custody time, after school, when BM is working, and when she has things to do without SD. I have no idea how she's planning to manage that without family support. Maybe do what she's been doing lately and leave a 10 year old home alone hours at a time, except now in an unfamiliar place without fifteen adult family members just a quick call away.
DH and I are bereft. DH is the most loving father I've ever met and he and SD are inseperable. SD is already sad every time she has to say goodbye to her dad, and that's with havjng every weekend with him.
This move is so selfish! And BM didn't think twice, for even a second about ripping SD away from her father for most of the year, leaving them with far fewer days together than the current custody plan, and that's assuming someone can afford all those expensive plane tickets to shuttle her around like a piece of luggage.
And to make things worse, I'm aware SD has recurring nightmares about losing her dad. I've heard her sit upright and call out for her dad in the dead of night more than once--usually shortly after she's told she won't see dad for a few weeks (e.g. because of vacation with BM), or if dad goes to the hospital for any reason, or SD has some other kind of major scare in her life. I have my suspicions about what started the nightmares--I am fairly convinced BM took SD hostage and refused to let her see her dad during the original custody battle (until she extorted ridiculous child support), as DH has dropped a few things over the years.
DH is going to fight for SD, of course. But with BM having majority custody currently and being the mom, the odds aren't good. We'll make the best case we can for what's in SD's best interests. And then we'll have to face whatever happens next.
I don't really need advice, I just needed to be able to tell someone what we're going through. DH is too sad to talk any more right now and it's not the kind of thing people who haven't been through it can understand, even if it wasn't too personal to talk about already.
This sucks. It's so unfair that this selfish person gets to break up our family that we worked so hard to lovingly make together, just because she feels like it.

Following getting severe separation anxiety after uni and also how much my parents abused me, I shut down all my emotions, telling myself 'I will never again need anyone else to be happy'.
I went beyond 'dismissive avoidant', I'm full on 'dark / cruel / arrogantly inferior'. Only when people try to approach me, hit on me or get close to me, or worse do anything negative to me, I reply with things like 'Why on Earth would you want to do that with me? ... Is this a prank? Who's paying you to fuck around with me'. In the case of negativity I turn on full verbal aggression and go full meltdown, also often if people aren't listening to me.
Also the more attractive I find someone the less I can make eye contact with them and the more I avoid them :x
Initial official diagnosis was ASD, AI diagnosis of avpd & dpd.
Like a recent thread from someone else where someone was told to sit down at a concert? If anyone asked me to do that I'd probably go full mosh mode metal insane on them, something like 'AND WHY THE FUCK SHOULD I SIT DOWN YOU STUPID BITCH? HOW ABOUT YOU FUCKING MOVE SOMEWHERE ELSE' .... My ASD diagnosis says my meltdowns make me a danger to myself cos I'd prolly end up getting killed welp.
Its because along with shutting down my emotions and empathy, my fear response and inhibition also disappeared, my brains frontal lobe function basically all died.
Imagine seeing a quiet guy walking around, avoiding eye contact, never smiling, staring at the floor, you go up to him and say something ... And he turns full rabid insane and starts shouting and swearing at you harder than you've ever been shouted at before. Oh and my face and beard makes Bin Laden look like a 5 year old schoolgirl .... No wonder I kept getting police called on me, 2 arrests prior to the ASD diagnosis just for shouting endlessly at people that 'started it'.
Now how to explain to normies that its a defense mode and not an aggression mode hmmm, good luck with that, everyone else wants to always be the victim.

So i was curious why everyone thinks the Cathay dragon Yin-Yin is going to have lore of beasts, so i decided to look up the og theory by and i realized it lined up a lot with the theories i made based off of the in game mechanics, so i decided to add in some of the mythology into my post. Also while we are here, i started writing this before shadows of change, then decided to wait until Yuan Bo was released to see how it impacted by speculative nonsense. Was kinda disillusioned with Cathay after Yuan Bo was fairly different to what everyone expected and so i took a break from Cathay for a while. As a result some of this might sound weird due to it being rewritten several times.
(https://www.reddit.com/totalwacomments/ppg76c/theories\_about\_the\_dragon\_princesprincesses\_the/)
----HEADS UP: there is gonna be a TLDR after each specific LL, You will thank me later----
The Mythological inspirations for the dragons
So for anyone who didn't click on the link to the mythology post that inspired this (for shame). The Dragon siblings seem to be inspired by the 4 symbols (don't worry there are 5 of them). Each of the 4 symbols (again of which there are 5) is associated with a direction and one of the 5 elements from the Wuxing cycle.
The wuxing cycle is made up of 5 elements, the mechnanics of the cycle themselves don't seem to matter too much (yet?) just the actual elements since each of the 5 elements matches up with what lores of magic the dragons favour so far.
The in-game and lore Harmony of magic (so far)
Lore wise (the "facts" lore not the term for magic lore), the Yin and Yang lores of magic are each made up of 4 of the elemental winds. Yin is formed from the winds of beasts, metal, death, shadows while Yang is formed from Life, fire, heavens, light. Each lore is effectively one half of high magic (the lizardmen and high/wood elf lore of magic) since High magic is made from using all 8 winds at once. Probably not worth noting but in my research i also found that high elves have a
The Dragons siblings (until Yuan Bo) have had a 50/50 split between Yin and Yang spells with 3 of each. Miao Ying has 3 life spells (a sub lore of yang) and 3 yin spells, While Zhao Ming has 3 metal spells (a sub lore of Yin) and 3 yang spells. Interestingly it seems that the Dragon siblings use the elemental sub-lore of the parent they get along with more, Miao Ying has a Yang sub lore and gets on great with her father, the master of yang while Zhao has the opposite, favouring a sub-lore of Yin while being his mother's favourite.
As for Yuan Bo, while he uses a mix of 4 lores of magic unlike Zhao and Miao, 2 light, 1 heavens, 2 Yin and 1 Yang, He does still loosely follow the pattern still. Yuan Bo still uses 3 elemental spells and 3 Yin/Yang spells so while he isn't split along the lines of Yin/Yang evenly, he does still have a 50/50 split in his spells. Interstingly even tho Yuan Bo has 4 different lores on hand, he only has the lore atrributes for 2 of those lores, heavens (his "main" lore given he runs is incharge of the astromancers) and the lore of Yin passive (sub lore of yang and the lore of Yin).
Overall it seems that there is a pattern of dragons having a 50/50 mix of elemental spells and Yin/Yang lores with only the spell atrribute from their favourite elemental lore and the Yin/Yang atrribute from the lore that their favourite elementl lore doesn't contribute too.
TLDR: The dragons (so far) have a themed pattern in what spells they can use and their lore passives.
Who are the other Dragons?
In case You haven't dug through the Cathay lore, the 2 dragon siblings not missing/dead in lore and not yet in game are: Li Dao the fire dragon and Yin Yin the sea dragon. There is also the Monkey King coming alongside them at some point, so without further a do, lets get into it.
Miao Ying The Storm Dragon
So according to the mythology theory, each of the dragons is inspired by one of the 4 symbols. Miao Ying is theorised to be inspired by the Black Tortoise. The Black Tortoise is associated with Water, the north, endurance and protecting the previously mentioned north. It's easy to see why the black dragon Miao Ying is likely inspired by said symbol, even more so when you look into warhammer lore.
In warhammer lore, Cathay refers to the lore of life as the lore of water. That is because wizards who use the lore of life can manipulate freshwater due to it's necessity and connection to life, the wind of life it's self is also described to move like water by those with witch sight. Hence the reason Miao Ying, uses lore of life spells, due to her being the storm dragon.
As for Miao Ying's actual lore, she is the oldest of the Dragon siblings and said to be the Emperor's favourite. Her main job is guarding the Great Bastion in the north since that is where the first threats to Cathay came from and she was the first of the dragons. The other main thing Miao Ying is in charge of is the forges of Nan-Gau and it's development of war machines. Miao Ying doesn't seem to be very involved with the process of inventing and gives the master artificers a great deal of personal freedom leading to some infighting. Miao seems to take a direct yang styled approach to problems, putting any rebel lords in their place and just throwing bodies and artillery at chaos incursions. Miao is described as cold and aloof perhaps because she has had to shoulder burdens on her own without any siblings.
Mechanically Miao Ying focuses on buffing ranged units which fits well with her Capital being Cathay's main source of guns as well as her Yin focus. Miao Ying also gets bonuses for fighting the forces of chaos and corruption which fits with her being in charge of holding the big wall. The starting Cathay rebels nearby is thematic for the scheming human lords but there isn't really a mechanic that does deeper than that. Nothing too fancy, she's a base game lord.
TLDR: Miao Ying is the (self-proclaimed?) favourite child of the Emperor, she is in charge of defending the great bastion and most of Cathay's gun/war machine construction. Lore of Life and Yin, tho there is a chance CA will revisit her down the line and give her a more diverse spell list or more mechanics. Miao Ying keeps her people in line with brute force and open threats but as long as the artificer lords serving her don't rebel or disobey her orders, she leaves them to their own devices.
Zhao Ming The Iron Dragon
A reminder i have the flair "alchemist of Zhao Ming" so you know, expect some simping bias in this next section.
In the mythology department, Zhao Ming appears to be inspired by the "White Tiger". Like all of the 4 symbols the White Tiger is associated with both a cardinal direction and an element/phase of the Wuxing cycle. In the White Tiger's case this is the West direction, where Zhao Ming guards and the element of metal which Zhao Ming champions. The White Tiger is believed to symbolise power and armies, accordingly Zhao Ming is shown to be much more involved with his soldiers than the other Dragons. It's also been theorised that since his troops are seemingly recruited from the much more rowdy desert clans, than the cities and villages where the other Dragons get their troops, thus requiring more military focus.
Zhao Ming's love of warpstone is inspired by mixing the mythology of the White Tiger and warhammer lore. As previously mentioned the White Tiger is associated with metal and in warhammer lore, wizards who practice the lore of metal, also known as alchemists in some circles, usually develop an obsession with warpstone. Warpstone's nature as being literally pure condensed chaos/warp gives it many abilities including the power to turn other metals into gold which is one of the key end-goals of all alchemy.
Speaking of alchemists, Zhao Ming controls the "house of secrets" said to be a dark mirror of the celestial court where illegal magics are used in place of the lore of heavens. While in game the house of secrets is only formed of lore of metal wizards, Zhao Ming's lore blurb in the expanded unit browers states he shealters lore of Fire wizards as well.
Since the SOC dlc showed us that several units in the Cathay army hail from the banner of the Celestial Court and that the House of secrets is said to be a dark mirror, there may be some units not yet in game that are house of secrets themed. What could those units be? Beyond the fire version alchemists, i have no clue it's called the house of secrets for a reason. The biggest possible curveball i can think of would be the elemental incarnate of fire, we already have the incarnate of beasts so it's safe to assume that the other 2 incarnates (death and fire) will show up at some point and Zhao likes fire wizards too. Zhao Ming could also have some nomadic units missing since most of his people are nomads but we haven't seen any of those in game yet.
Interestingly the lore of metal is the elemental lore of magic most connected to Tzeentch as it is all about changing metals into other metals (lead to gold, etc) and Tzeentch is all about change. The lore of fire on the other hand is one of the other 3 lores of magic used by chaos warbands. Shadows and death are both connected to Slannesh and Nurgle respectively but fire is different. The Lore of Fire would be Khornes favoured lore because he loves flames and stuff but he hates magic so the lore of fire is considered to be the generic chaos lore that all the gods dip into using. Meaning the 2 types of elemental wizards Zhao Ming protects are the 2 types that Tzeentch armies would tradditionally recruit for open warfare.
Is Zhao Ming's protection giving the wizards most at risk of Tzeentch corruption a way out from the persecution and not be driven into the arms of Tzeentch? Or is he just letting Tzeentch agents hide in plain sight? Honestly it's prob a bit of both. Yuan Bo may be right about a decent number of those wizards but those he is wrong about, would be forced to join chaos or perish if it weren't for Zhao Ming's House of Secrets.
Zhao in terms of lore is (despite being a mad scientist who snorts warpstone and one of the only Dragons to regularly drink,) somehow the most subtle of the dragons. Unlike Miao Ying, Zhao Ming favours diplomatic solutions over just throwing bodies at problems. The main example of this is his treaties with the ogres however the way he interacts with his soldiers is also potentially diplomatic. Zhao Ming as many of you may know likes to join his troops for a drink and even laughs at jokes at his own expense unlike the other dragon siblings.
Some have suggested that this means Zhao acts more human than the other dragons, however personally when i first read his actual lore, i got the impression Zhao Ming is not more human than the other Dragons, simply better at faking it. That Zhao thinks his troops, recruited mostly from the nomadic tribes won't take him seriously or work at their full potential if stifled by the iron handed discipline of main Cathay, so he meets them on their level. Zhao Ming is a people person, he makes concessions for the nomads joining his forces, talks out deals with ogres, runs the main (at least in terms of land routes so far) trade hub in Cathay, plays host and sets up areas to cater to dogs of war visiting his city and speaks out for some of the non heavens elemental wizards in Cathay. He talks his way through most problems and reads people to try and get the most benefit for Cathay.
Zhao Ming while reckless and likely overexposed to warpstone, is far more cunning and manipulative than most people give him credit. Turning pillaging ogres into peaceful neighbours and mercenaries for his cause, even setting up a dedicated visitors district in is capital for them. Using rogue outcast wizards to strengthen the great bastion's stone work via alchemical secrets. Making nomads who would have little identity as part of central Cathay see him as one of their own and not some stuffy upstart who looks down on them and needs to be overthrown. Only the more indirect threats to his rule, the cults and skaven who spend most of their time hiding from the Dragons remain in Zhao Ming's land, everyone who poses a direct or open threat has been slowly subverted into one of Zhao Ming's pawns. I can kind of understand why the Emperor might not like him, every chance he gets, he talks his problems out instead of throwing a meteor at it like a true wizard of Cathay. But despite his favour of the diplomatic approach, Zhao Ming has an iron grasp on the western provinces. It looks like Miao Ying and Zhao Ming are the favourite children because they have absolute authority in their domains, one through the direct, disciplined Yang style of the Emperor and the other through the Yin cunning of the Empress
For Zhao's gameplay he is pretty straight forward. The Iron dragon focuses on ogre mercs and bonuses to cargo convoys, again supporting his more subtle diplomatic approaches from lore. He also has bonuses to getting magical items and wields the same abilities as his alchemists representing the fruit of his House of secrets. Beyond that Zhao Ming supports melee units to counter balance Miao Ying's ranged support and pushing that whole harmony thing. He is a bit basic but he is also a base game lord so that's kinda to be expected, his gameplay does seem to back up his lore and mythological inspirations tho.
TLDR: Cathay's mad scientist and suprisingly great diplomat, he solves as many of his problems as he can through his wits and cunning, perfering to talk his problems away, hence why the Moon Empress loves him and the bolder face-on yang loving Emperor cares less for him. He leads the nomadic people of the western provinces and the house of secrets, shealtering lore of fire and metal wizards from Yuan Bo. Tho he lacks any units specific to his faction in game, like Miao Ying CA could revisit down the line for unique mechanics.
Yuan Bo the Jade dragon
Yuan Bo is mythologically inspired by the 5th symbol of the 4 symbols (don't worry it's the optional one). The Yellow dragon is associated with the centre, rather than a cardinal direction like the other 4 symbols, as well as the element of Earth. He is said to represent the Emperor in mythology which fits Yuan Bo perfectly.
Yuan Bo of course runs Cathay's central government when the Emperor is away and is often confused for the Emperor by outsiders in lore. So that tracks, he is also incharge of the celestial court aka the astromancers of cathay, the only legal wizards besides the dragonblooded elite. His also makes sense with the Yellow dragon being associated with stone as in warhammer lore Cathay calls the lore of heavens, lore of stone.
Why is it called the lore of stone, perhaps because the Emperor used it heavily while he created the great bastion and terracotta sentinels out of stone? personally i choose to believe it's because GW didn't want people confused on Cathay's magic pre-game 3 and so told every writier that mentioned Cathay doing magic to make it explicitly clear that Cathay only uses magic never seen before in the west and lore of heavens. Then as a result of that, writiers only used the most iconic lore of heavens spell when ever Cathay fought, the comet of casandora, every single fight, giving Cathay a "chuck a rock at it till it goes away mentality". The Emperor and bastion option is more likely but my headcanon Cathay's love of throwing rocks amuses me.
In terms of his other lores, like Miao Ying and Zhao Ming, he only has passives for heavens and Yin, which follows their pattern of one sub-lore of yin/yang for their main element and the reverse yin/yang lore as well. Tho Yuan Bo mixes things up by having both Yang/Yin spells and the lore of light as well which makes sense since it's the anti-daemon lore and he is incharge of rooting out tzeentch cults.
As the leader of the celestial court, Yuan Bo fields mostly astromancers and their associated units, constructs. If you didn't know; the lore blurbs on Cathay techs imply that the celestial court is incharge of maintaining and repairing the terracotta sentinels in the base game and are actively searching for ways to restore them to their full power. Another reason why Cathay might call the lore of heavens; the lore of stone, those who use it repair the stone warriors of Cathay. His other units include the Great Moonbirds which Astromancers have been known to tame, the purified manficores are in a similar situation. The final celestial court unit is the crowmen, which are elementals of Yin and act as spies for Yuan Bo.
There could be more celestial court units in a future DLC as the spies/hidden Yin side of the celestial court hasn't really been shown outside of the crowmen. Besides the celestial court, Yuan Bo also uses wardrums and gate guards which are part of Yuan Bo's bureaucratic duties. CA stated that they had to look outside of the celestial court when adding new units to SOC with the greatmoon bird because nothing in the celestial court fit the role of a big flier which is what CA and the community felt Cathay needed at the time. So that implies there are other units under the celestial court's banner just none who are single entity fliers.
For Yuan Bo's gameplay, he uses his matters of state and manipulates his foes through covert and administrative actions. Just like his lore, he manages Cathay's government and spy network, he mostly spends his time however trying to hijack the geomantic web to improve the Wu Xing compass and empower whatever ritual the Dragon Emperor is working on. Little weird he focuses on Lizardmen so much but eh?
TLDR: Yuan Bo is the central administrator of Cathay, spymaster and leader of the celestial court. He believes himself to be the favoured child dispite what Miao Ying claims. He appears to be the dragon sibling that gets called into sort out the other dragon's messes. He likes to use subterfuge to achive his goals but he likes to use brute force to solve issues when he can. The celestial court that he over sees probably has more unseen units so we might see those in the future for other dragons siblings.
Welp reaching the character limit and only about half way, to the comment section i guess?

I just returned to fall guys this morning after not playing it since it released back in august 2020. I played fall guys when it had just gone on sale on steam. To be clear, I literally played it for just 1 week with friends, only for me to not play it again for the next 4 years (just to be clear I know a little about this game). Reason is that we constantly download games, play them for a little, and then outright start playing a different game. Just for reference, Among us took the spotlight that year for my friend group. Fast forward to 2024 and a bunch of coworkers play stumble guys together when they aren’t busy. I couldn’t help but noticed that it looked like an exact copycat of fall guys (except that it didn’t look as fun). Well I decided to play it since they insisted, and to no surprise I wasn’t very impressed with it. Specially since fall guys from 2020 was so much fun.
Playing stumble guys sparked my memories of playing fall guys, so I decided download it once more, and after playing it yesterday morning…
Welp, it sucks. Big time! I couldn’t help but notice that the game has drastically changed to be an exact copy of stumble guys. Which is really bizarre because stumble guys is literally the copycat, and don’t get me started on how it’s catered to towards Ipad kids. It’s apparent that the game is on its last breath. There’s too many bugs and crashes, the new rounds are now created by what seems the players???, tons of micro transactions in your face, the physics have changed, so all the chaotic-fun gameplay has been outright removed, and now it’s 32 players compared to 60 (maybe it was 100, but I can’t recall to be honest). I’m not sure why they thought that mimicking stumble guys was the right move, but to me it feels like this game simply wants to cater a different audience. Granted the game is no longer as popular as it once was, so most of the funding for the game must be just invested in licensing for the micro-transactions. Having creative in the main game mode also allows for less work from the devs (which means less money spent on maintaining the game). It’s pretty much a TF2 situation but worse. This is where the players now have the burden of taking care of the game and pretty much any funding it receives is solely for the licensing of cosmetics, as well as funding the small team of devs that update whatever the community creates. I’m not sure what the past years have been like for the game, but since the fate of the game has been handed-down to the players, it’s clear that the support is minimal. Specially because I noticed there’s no quality control on the levels ( I constantly encountered bad gameplay given that this is a triple-a game). I also noticed there’s no way for players to mod the game and fix the issues themselves. So it seems like maybe the devs are pretty much done catering the game to adults.
Onto my prediction (coming from someone with 1 week of playtime from 2020 so take it lightly) is that this game is going to be catered now towards kids. Simply because it’s just easier to trick kids into literally emptying their parents wallet at the first sight of a micro-transaction. They also have a harder time complaining about the bad quality unlike the adults, and some outright don’t really care if the game has bad quality. Kids will always care as long as the game has an addicting concept and it entertains their short attention span. It’s saddening to see the state of the game, but you guys as a community have unintentionally voted for this. This community forgot that players vote with their wallets, and unfortunately the micro-transactions got the best of this community.
in full honesty, if you feel at a loss for all the money you’ve spent, it’s best to outright stop giving any more money. Sunk-cost fallacy sucks. Since it’s the late stage to save this game, the best thing to do is to completely stop all funding. Not even a single cent. This is because If this game makes it to mobile gaming (if it doesn’t already exist), be prepared to play the worst state that the game has ever reached. Kids will out number any opinion you have, and they will become the new community. You will play the worst player created levels known to man. Granted this is just from the observation I made when playing, that you can vote on which levels are good or bad, or vote for the levels you want to continue playing. Unfortunately some kids don’t know any better about quality, so they will just vote sometimes for the worst levels ever made. This is coming also from another observation I made, since it seems like the new creative levels aren’t actually tested. It might just be that the game engine is picking out the top voted, and present them as new levels for the main game-mode.
I’m sure if the game goes mobile like I’m predicting, the new streamers will be on full support for this to happen. Streamers only care about their audience, and it’s a huge win since this will bring mainly kids. This is the best outcome for them as kids are easy to entertain, and they bring in money much easier.
Ngl I feel bad for the community, but now is the time to stop funding the game. You can continue playing but stop funding it. Funding it more will bring more unwanted changes. I’m honestly glad I didn’t invest my time or money on this game.
If you want to save this game, the only realistic thing to do to save it is to-

1. Band together and beg the devs to fully implement a polished level creator. This is the tool that will allow players to keep the game fresh.
   
2. Make the devs allow players to have full access to modding the game. This will help with fixing any issues that often take forever to be fixed. Also if the community cares enough, players will literally return it to its former glory. They will pretty much do all the work that the devs don’t want to do.
   
3. Ask the devs for a workshop. It lets players create content that others can see and vote on. If the community likes it, all the devs have to do is implement it. Players will fix the bugs through patch notes and everything. All the work the devs need to do is implement the updates. This will make epic games happy because they no longer fund a full team. At most, they will have smaller team working on implementing patch notes and updates, as well licensed content. Epic will just need to fund the licensing for exclusive content.
   

I don't know if anyone remembers but, approximately a month ago, I was bitten/nipped by an American Bull Terrier in my apartment elevator.
OP here: https://www.reddit.com/BanPitBulls/comments/1c4hiwp/just_got_nipped_by_an_american_bull_terrier_in_an/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Welp, I reported it to my property manager (I rent) and the strata, the handyman/owner spoke directly to the dog's owner, he adviced him the dog Must be muzzled anywhere on property and that he is lucky it was me and not a child or senior.
The dog's owner stopped by our apartment with an apology letter and box of chocolate, he seemed genuinely remorseful and and I reassured him that I held no resentment/hard feelings and just wanted to ensure the dog was muzzled, for it's own sake, in the future.
All fine and dandy right?
Nope!
We're in the process of moving and I stopped by the apartment to grab some more stuff, I step out of the elevator and WHO'S FUCKING THERE? Unmuzzled?
The bull terrier, of Course!
I legitimately jumped a little when the elevator doors opened and I was face to face with it again, my own reaction surprised me a bit. It also lunged forward slightly.
I made pleasantries, went inside and immediately called the ownehandyman (a lovely older gentlemen), he sounded More pissed as I was and said 'I HAVE to report it to the Rangers now! They'll have to seize the dog, why didn't he just bloody muzzle it!'
So, unfortunately, seems like a sad ending. The dog doesn't deserve to be a cosmetic accessory to a walking mid-life crisis and the poor bugger is probably gonna be the one paying the price.

TODAY'S RECAP

Wow. So little to summarize today. It was all very anticlimactic stuff. If you're inclined to ff through filler and boring scenes, today might be a day you lean on the ff button.
Luna and RJ reunited in one of the most boring reunions of a soap couple (no disrespect to the young actors, just a snoooooze of a story). Both Carter and Brooke yelled at Zende. News got around about Sheila.

Eric, Donna, Ridge, and Brooke at Eric's

(Everyone views newspaper headlines about Sheila being alive. Their reactions are underwhelming).
Everyone: Surprise surprise. 🫤 Ppffrrtt..Can you believe it? 😕 Can't believe it. 😟 I can believe it. 😐 Yeah, kinda not totally surprising. 🫤 Sheila back from the dead 💀 again. Yeah. 😑 Welp. She does that. 🫤. Mmm hmm. 😒 Phewy. 😣 Wah. 😧 Sucky. 😒 Blechy! 🤢 Not happy. 🙁 Pouty. ☹️ This again. 😞 It's getting old. 🙄 Ikr? 😦 Witch 👹 is back. Now we have to look over our shoulder again. Dang it.
Eric: (picks up a call). Yeah. Alive. Again. 🫤 Sorry Lauren. I know. It sucks. Bye.
Exit Brooke, who received a message from Charlie that Zende is at FC.
Ridge: BE CAREFUL of SHEILA! 😦 Grrr. Huff.
Brooke: Yeah yeah. Byeeee.
Ridge: Snarl. 😦 So, here's the SugaJanet WebbeSheila story. Blah blah blah...
Donna: So look-a-like 👩👩 psycho 🫨 Sugar attacked Steffy.
Ridge: You got it. 😕
Eric: And Deacon and Finn rescued Sheila and Finn wants her in their lives? MY GOD! 😮
Donna: And Finn's connection to Sheila has deepened because--
Ridge: IDGAF about Finn's pathetic MOMMY issues! Snort! 😤 Grrr. Finn is a fuck face! Everyone knows Sheila is tricking his dumb ass.
Donna: He picked Steffy over Sheila though, amirite?
Ridge: Grrr! Snarl! He should have NEVER EVER ASKED STEFFY to be BFFs with that psycho Sheila! Huff! Puff! 😤
Eric and Donna: But it's Finn. We like Finn. He's a decent guy. Yah. Yeah. It's Finn!
Eric: (💭 Finn did just save my life about a second ago. So, I'm pretty fond of that boy. 👨‍⚕️)
Donna: (💭 Finn just saved my honey 🍯 bear 🐻, so Finn will always be special to me. Maybe you could lay off of berating Finn.)
Ridge: Finn is PISSING ME OFF! I'm pissed off on the regular, but he's putting me in a PERMA-PISSED state of continuous SNARLING and SPUTTERING! GAH! Harumph. Sheila! Growl! Roar! 😦😤😡
Eric and Donna: 🙄🙄 (💭 He's so mean about dear, lifesaver Finn. Gah.)
Ridge: How does Sheila keep getting away with her CRIMES?! 😮😤😡 (Reddit would like to remind you, Ridge, that your daughter refused to testify -- bc YOU went along with the genius plan to get charges against Sheila dropped so that Bill could entrap her. Yeah and that backfired in your faces.)
Sheila! Finn! Snarl! Grrr! 😦
Eric: Finn is vulnerable to Sheila. But he's a good man, his heart is in the right place and did the right thing.
Ridge: 🤨

Zende, Carter, and Brooke at FC

Zende: 🙄😞😒😟
Carter: I see 👀 you not working, man.
Zende: Yah. Can't concentrate. 🫤
Carter: You need to concentrate! HFTF is depending on YOU! Stop 🛑 thinking about Luna! She's not available! You were WRONG! 😦 You FUCKED UP! 🤨 You can't have HER! 😐 You shoulda KNOWN better! 😦 WTF were you thinking? 😕
Zende: My bad. But it's more complicated than--
Carter: Nah! Just STOP! 😤 Look, I totally understand. I'm your friend. I fucked up zooming on Quinn and almost lost everything. Don't do what I did.
Zende: Okay. 😞
Enter Brooke.
Brooke: 🤨 I need to talk to Zende ALONE.
Zende: Carter knows. 😒
Brooke: So what?! I said ALONE! 😠 (💭 So I can bitch more freely at you! )
Exit Carter.
Brooke: How could you?! 😤 How dare you?! 😦 How scummy can you be?! 😣 You BETRAAAAAAAYED MY SON! 😡 YOUR COUSIN! YOUR FAMILY! WTF?! You KNEW she was with RJ! 👦 You KNEW she was on his arm! You KNEW they were TOGETHER! 👩‍❤️‍👨 You KNEW they LOVED each other! 💘 You knew they were COMMITTED! (💭 I'm running out of ways to repeat the same thing. 🫤) You should have questioned her! How could you do this to LUNA? You took advantage! You KNEW she was loopy!
Zende: Oh. Wait.☝️Hold on right there. I didn't know she was high 🥴 af. She was in my bed. I thought she wanted me. 🙄
Brooke: YOU BETRAYED RJ! ROOOOOAR! 😤😮 Growl! Snarl! (💭 Ridge has rubbed off on me). My SON is good! 👼 He doesn't want me to tell Ridge so Luna is not even more hurt. He's THAT guy! Sweet, wonderful, caring RJ! I thought YOU were that kind of guy too! But NO! How would your mother feel about you, now?!
Zende: 🥺😣😕😞😖😟☹️ (no quivering chin emoji, sorry Reddit). I'm so sorry.
Brooke: (💭 I'ma totally ignore his apology. 😑). So, get OUT! Skedaddle! Vamoosh! 💨 Be gone! 🪄Before someone drops a house on you! Go to Forrester International (💭 Where your ex wife, Nicole, has been languishing off canvas)! Or Forrester Antarctica! 😡
Zende: Oh. Wait.☝️Hold on right there. I earned my place here. 😐 So.
Brooke: So? So! Go!
(💭 My hypocrisy is totally irrelevant. Shut up, Reddit. Everyone gets to judge tf out of everyone else, as if we never did the same or worse. That's OUR thing! Steffy just did it to MY daughter. Ridge does it every day. Stephanie made it a life style! Taylor wagged her finger at me and she slept with all the same people! That's how we roll! So Reddit, you can just leave Bridget and Katie out of this! I'm fussing at Zende until I'm blue in the face because he hurt my precious son and I get to stand up for him! Only I get to hurt my family! Gah! Plus, that was the past! I've matured, so I can be judgey! Shhh!)

RJ and Luna at FC

Luna: I heard about Sheila 👿. That's SOOOOOOO awful!! 😧 I'm SOOOOOO SORRRRRRRY!
RJ: Sheila terrorized my family for soooo long. 😒 Now she's back. 😞
Luna: I wish I could have been there for you, but we have this big 🫲___________🫱 gulf between us. Wah! 😥 I hate it! 😟 I miss you! But you need time. I understand. 😞
RJ: 😕
Luna: You used to look SOOOOOOOOOO HAPPY! 🤩 😃 Now you look SOOOOOOOOOO not happy! ☹️ I'm SOOOOOOOO SORRRRRRRY! I should have told you SOOOOOOO much sooner. It's ALL MY FAULT 😩 -- and the MINTS -- that you look jaded af now and that you broke up with your cousin! I miss you SOOOOOOO MUCH! 😫
RJ: It's not YOUR fault! 😦 It's stupid, fuck face ZENDE'S fault! He shouldn't have, but he DID and IDGAF about that dude! Fuck that guy! 😤 Blech! 🤢
Luna: I used to be SOOOOOO afraid 😱 until your love made me feel SOOOOOO not afraid. 🥰☺️
RJ: Yah? 😦
Luna: Yah. 😔
RJ: Well alrighty then. Let's fix everything! I miss YOU SOOOOOO MUCH TOO! 😟 Let's just forget this hiccup and be together 👩‍❤️‍👨 again, angel 😇 face!
Luna: What about the time you needed? 😟
RJ: All I need is YOUUUU! I love you SOOOOOO MUCH! 🥰😍😘
Luna: I love YOU SOOOOOO MUCH! 😍🥰😘😃
(Luna and RJ embrace. It's all better now.) ♥️👩‍❤️‍👨💕
RJ: Gotta get to a meeting. We'll pick up this happy moment later. 😍
Luna: Yah! ☺️
RJ exits.
Luna: 🤢🤮😳😧 (💭 OMG! Pregnant?🤰 Who's the daddy? 🙄)
The end.

My car's transmission is on the fritz, so it's in the shop and I'm working from home for at least today. Thank goodness I can even work from home, or things would be a lot more complicated. Anyways, that's just a bit of a vent. I've also decided that I might do little lore-esque prechapter bits for some extra flavor. Hope you guys enjoy them! I find them to be fun little thought experiments on how people might perceive the world I've created from within vs from my own perspective. Enjoy some crafting and some romance!
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We know that the spots that are caused by looking at a source of light are, in fact, damage of some sort to the eye. This is confirmed by the spots rapidly disappearing should someone be healed whilst experiencing them. But why? Is there a divinity within light, beyond what our mortal eyes can withstand? Is there some sort of invisible emanation that comes alongside the light that damages us in some way? The discovery of light damaging the eye has opened more questions for me than it has closed.
-Musings on the Relations of Light and Fire, by Jarwic Leftun
\***
Xander carefully opened the door, finding Gabrelle already asleep, and sat down on a chair. Maybe he could get that adaptive camouflage to work right on bright colors. Surely he had some colorful things in his inventory.
He did in fact have a few colorful things in his inventory, and he whiled the rest of the night away making small adjustments to the runic array that was embroidered into the cloth. He was satisfied before dawn, the cloth now performing as well with light colors as it had with darker colors. Now he just needed to make a cloak out of it. He briefly considered coating his armor with the array, but discarded it. There might be times where he’d want to be seen. Besides, a hooded cloak would better break up the outline of his figure, the ripples of fabric, especially if he were to crouch or lay prone, obscuring his outline even more. In little time at all, he had a long, deep hooded cloak of the color shifting, runed cloth in his hands. He stashed it in his inventory for now, as he had no particular need to sneak up on something right now. The rest of the time before dawn he spent silently sitting in the chair he’d chosen, trying to keep his thoughts to a minimum, just daydreaming. Night dreaming? He couldn’t sleep anymore, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t try to let his mind wander.
As the dawn came and the sun began to shine through the window of the room, Gabrelle slowly awoke, once more finding Xander sitting in a chair rather than in bed.
“Mmf,” She grunted as she stretched. “Morning, Xander. You got back late.”
“Morning, yourself,” Xander said, turning his head to look at Gabrelle. “Yeah... Yeah, I guess I did.”
“What were you doing, anyway?” She asked, curious. “You didn’t mention that you’d be out late, just that you were going to go to see Valteria at her shop.”
“I uh... went on a date.”
“I knew it! ‘Comparing notes’ was a date!” Gabrelle exclaimed triumphantly.
“It was not!” Xander complained. “But we went to a tavern in the evening and it sort of... turned into a date on the way there.”
“Awhh, that’s so cute,” Gabrelle said. “Did it go well? Is she nice? Did you kiss?”
“I think it went well. We talked a lot about different projects and ideas we had. I also got to meet another [Godsmarked] - he owns the tavern we went to. I think she’s nice. Maybe a little shy. I think she’s gotten used to being treated differently by people. I don’t think she really believed that I wanted to go on a date with her, at first. ...And yes. We kissed.”
“Ooooh, look at you! You’re growing up so fast!” Gabrelle teased.
“Oh hush. I’m older than you!” Xander huffed, then returned to seriousness. “But ah, if I’m going to be dating someone... we need to have a conversation, Gabrelle.”
“We need to stop sleeping together?” Gabrelle quickly deduced before Xander could say it himself.
“Yeah... It doesn’t feel right, even though it’s just platonic between us. I don’t think I would appreciate being in Valteria’s situation and knowing that the person I was seeing was sleeping with someone else at night.”
“Well, I figured this would happen eventually,” Gabrelle said. “Either you or I were bound to find someone eventually. Don’t worry, I’m not upset. Don’t get me wrong, the snuggles were nice, but like I told you a while ago, I don’t have nearly as much trouble sleeping when I’m with the team.”
“Thanks for not being upset, Gabrelle.”
“You know this means you have to start paying for your own room, though, right?”
“Ah, shit, you’re right. I forgot.”
Xander left the room to allow Gabrelle some privacy to get dressed and meandered back down the stairs to see if any other members of the team were already up. Looking around, he spied Graffus eating breakfast at at table and moved to sit with the dwarf.
“Mornin’” Graffus greeted Xander through a mouthful of bread.
“Morning,” Xander greeted back.
“Glad to see you made it back, we were wondering if you’d be out all night,” Graffus told him, after swallowing his bread.
“I was out a bit late, I suppose. I let the time get away from me.” Xander said, not really wanted to be teased again about going out on a date. “So what are you planning to do today?”
“Bah, Frazay has roped me into helping her do research for the drakeling. So reading is what’s in store for me.” Graffus tore himself off another piece of bread from his plate and slathered it with jam. “You going to be going back to that [Tinker] you’ve been spending time with lately?”
“Yeah, that’s the plan. I’m supposed to learn more about converting mana types today, and also help her fix the suit of armor that I wrecked.”
“Welp,” Graffus said, now on his last piece of bread, “I hope ya learn something new. Never had much to do with [Tinker]s – not saying I dislike them, just that I haven’t had much experience with them – so it don’t make much sense to me. Using a hammer is about the only overlap in our professions.”
“I think your hammer is significantly larger than the one most [Tinker]s would use,” Xander chuckled. Thinking about what he should be doing before he headed to Valteria’s, he asked Graffus, “Hey, I might need to buy some monster parts or elemental cores, something like that, for practice. You know where I would go to find stuff like that?”
Graffus shrugged. “Dunno. My guess would be an alchemy and reagents shop. That’s generally what we’ve sold monster parts to that didn’t go to a smith or leatherworker.”
“Thanks, Graffus.”
The two of them chatted for a while longer, catching up on what each other had been doing. Graffus excused himself to finish getting ready for the day, saying he needed to tend to his beard, leaving Xander downstairs. Deciding to be productive and proactive, Xander stood as well and headed out of the inn to find an alchemy shop.
It wasn’t long before he found one, a familiar scene of an eclectic collection of powders, liquids, crystals, and strange organic things floating in jars inside the building. The proprietor was a dwarf, seated at a workbench. They were grinding something into a powder as Xander entered. He received a distracted greeting before the dwarf returned to his work.
Xander wandered about the shop for a few minutes, looking at the various materials throughout the shop. He identified what he thought might be an elemental core, a jagged piece of crystal looking material that seemed to have an inner flame. As for the monster parts in jars, Xander had no idea what was what. He finally felt he’d waited long enough and moved closer to the worktable that the dwarf was still sitting at, working away at the mortar and pestle.
“Excuse me,” Xander said, grabbing the shopkeep’s attention.
“Mm?” The dwarf said questioningly. “Can I help you find something?”
“I was wondering if you had any elemental cores. Something small, I just need one to practice with.”
“Aye, I’ve a few of them around the shop. You want something to practice with? So a relatively weak core, then – not all the small ones are weak. Do you need any particular type?” The dwarf stood up and stretched, moving to one of the shelves.
“Uhm no, just whatever is cost effective, I suppose.”
The alchemist rifled through the various bits and bobs on one of the shelves nearby before producing a small chip of what looked to be a semi-translucent stone. It was tinged slightly yellow with streaks of white. “This here is a chip off a lightning attuned core. Pretty weak, but it does still produce mana.”
Xander could see the dwarf’s arm hair standing up as if from static electicity as he held up the stone. “How much?” He asked.
“Twenty gold.”
Xander shrugged. Twenty gold wasn’t an issue for him anymore, and he didn’t feel like haggling. He always hated haggling. “Sure.” He fished out the coin and handed it over to the dwarf.
The dwarf handed over the stone to Xander and the pop of a static electric shock could be heard as a tiny arc passed between the two of them. The dwarf grunted and shook his hand. “Thanks for the business,” he told Xander. “Anything else you find yourself in need of?”
“Not at the moment, but thanks for asking.” Xander waved goodbye to the dwarf and pocketed the tiny elemental core. He continued down the street in the direction of Valteria’s shop, thinking about how he was going to undo the welding job he’d done on Valteria’s armor. He’d need her to guide his repair efforts.
Xander returned to the inn momentarily to grab one of his golems. He settled on Atlas for now, as it was the most basic of the humanoid forms he’d created. No extra arms or weird feet on him, no sir.
Arriving at the building that contained Valteria’s home and shop, Xander knocked before opening the door. “Morning,” he called out.
“Xander! Hello!” Valteria called out. She was at the same work bench she’d been at yesterday. Jarrett didn’t seem to be in the shop at the moment, as Xander wasn’t able to spot the man.
Commanding Atlas to follow him in and closing the door behind him, Xander started walking towards Valteria. “How’s it going?” He asked.
“Good, it’s going good,” Valteria responded as Xander brought a stool over to her workbench. “How about yourself?”
“Not bad. The upside of not sleeping is that I never struggle in the mornings now. I used to hate waking up.” Xander laughed. “I even ran an errand before I came here! Picked up this.” Xander fished around in his pocket until he found the small chip of elemental core and held it up for Valteria to see.
“Core?” She asked distractedly, staring at Atlas. She tore her eyes away and looked closely at the small crystalline stone. “Lightning attuned?”
“That’s what the [Alchemist] at the shop said,” Xander affirmed. “Said it was a very weak one, but that it did still produce mana.”
“Mmm, a good practice piece, then.”
“I thought it would be, too. Not that I know what to do with it, yet.”
“Well, how about this: I teach you to set the stone and make some conduit, and then you can help me fix my armor. All the glue has turned to dust by now, thank the gods.”
“Sounds fair enough. So, how do mana conduits work?”
“Well, the concept is simple enough. It’s a tube which conducts mana,” Valteria began to explain.
“Mmhm.” Xander nodded along.
“What you need is a setting – usually of silver, as it has good mana conductivity – which will be the first step of conduction, taking the mana from the stone. Simply wrapping the core in silver wire can work well enough, drawing in the mana that the core puts out through its surface, but for a more effecient setting, small holes are usually drilled into the core to set the wire into as well, giving more surface area to draw from.”
“So we care about the mana conductivity of the material, then? That makes sense, I just hadn’t thought about it. I actually did a little experiment with my rune work to test which fillings were the most conductive.”
“Oh really?” Valteria said, interested. “What were your results?”
“Well, gold and silver were high up there in conductivity, and probably make the most sense for someone who has to physically manipulate material without use of a skill – both for a core setting and for inlaying a rune – but I did find that sapphires and rubies were even more efficient at transferring mana than gold and silver.”
“Mmm... interesting. I’ve heard of gemstones being used in very high-grade settings, as well as various other exotic materials. I read an account of one [Mechanist] who used tubes of mercury to conduct mana, though the relative effectiveness compared to silver wasn’t mentioned.” Valteria cleared her throat. “Uhm, now, where was I? Right, basic settings. Once you have your core – or monster organ, if you’re going that route – you connect it to the conduit. Usually, this is also silver wiring. I like to braid several smaller wires together, personally. I find it to be sturdier and hold up to flexing better. From there, it needs to be tied into a device. Which is a topic for tomorrow.” Looking around the shop, Valteria seemed to identify something on one of the shelves nearby. “I have a core that you could watch me set, and then you could try setting your own, if you’d like.”
“That sounds good to me,” Xander said. “I always love to see a master as work,” he added, opting for a little flattery.
“Follow me, then.” Valteria said, standing up from her stool and waving for Xander to follow.
Xander followed Valteria as she walked over to the shelf she’d been looking at earlier and took a palm sized, bright green stone from it. “Nature attuned core,” She explained, holding it for Xander to see. “I’m told it was taken from some kind of moving tree.” Valteria then moved to another worktable, on which were several of what looked to be drill bits to Xander. There was also an apparatus that look like it was designed to hold the bits, which was confirmed for him when Valteria slotted one of the small drill heads into the device. “This thing,” Valteria said, waving the drill a little bit, “is a life saver. I used to have to drill holes with a hand cranked one. Worth every single coin I paid for it to get an enchanted one.” She turned a dial on one side of the handheld device, which Xander was coming to think of as a magic dremel tool, and it began to come to life, the drill bit beginning to spin with a quiet whirring sound.
“Neat.” Xander commented. He watched patiently as Valteria drilled a series of shallow holes in the stone, the distinct screeching of metal on stone echoing through the shop floor. “So where’s Jarrett today?” He asked.
“Oh, he has the day off today. He asked for it about a week ago, not sure what for, though,” Valteria said distractedly. Soon she was finished with the holes she was drilling into the core, and moved to another workbench. “Now we create a setting for the core. This is a fairly simple way of doing it, mind you, but it is effective.”
Xander watched as she took sections of pre-braided silver wire and fitted the ends into the holes she had drilled. Once each hole was filled with a section of wire, Valteria began to pull wire from a spool, wrapping the stone until it was completely covered with silver wire and binding the braided sections to the stone in the process. “There,” she said, setting the stone down on the workbench. “A perfectly serviceable setting."
“So, if I understand correctly, you coat the core in a mana conductive material – the more surface area, the better, hence the holes – to create a setting?”
“Mmhmm,” Valteria said, nodding.
“Seems fairly straighforward. And then you connect the silver wiring that’s wrapped around it to more wiring, and attach that to your device? Why the distance? Why not just connect the setting directly to the device?”
“You absolutely can, if space isn’t an issue. Technically, the connection between the mana battery and the device, even if it’s just a single point with no distance, is still referred to as a conduit, though, so it’s considered a three part creation.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Do you want to try making your own, now? I don’t mind lending you a little wire.”
“Sure, but I should be good on material, I can produce it with my skills. Doesn’t last without a source of mana, but I guess the core itself might provide enough. Think this little chip is a bit small to put holes in, though.”
Xander looked at the small piece of crystal in his hand. If he just need as much contact as possible with a mana conductive material, his best bet would be to embed it into a sapphire or ruby. He decided on ruby, for no particular reason. Still holding the chip of core in his hand, he concentrated on his [Creation] ability. Valteria watched, amazed, as a ruby began to take form and grow around the piece of core until it was completely coated in a thin layer of gemstone.
“So, you can just... make things?” Valteria asked, sounding jealous.
“Well, it costs mana, and anything I make that isn’t provided a source of mana that leaves my person disintegrates in a day, but, yes. I can just make things with my skills. But,” he added, cutting off Valteria’s complaint of unfairness, “I have never received a skill that actually lets me improve a material. Sure, I have runes, which generally makes up the difference, but I don’t have any skills that improve the things I make. So, if you made a mana battery, and I made a mana battery the same way with identical materials, yours is going to be better, I assume, because you have skills that passively improve the things that you make, am I right?”
“Okayyy,” Valteria huffed. “I guess that does make it a little less unfair. But ugh! It would be so nice not having to source materials.” She looked at the ruby with a piece of core set inside it that Xander had made. “Well, I guess that about does it for making a setting... I thought it might have taken you longer to make one. I guess we can move on to fixing my armor even sooner! It’ll be nice to have it up and moving again.”
“Sure, sure, we can do that. Where is it, anyway?” Xander asked, looking around the shop again like he somehow would have missed the eight foot tall suit of armor.
“It’s in a shed behind the house,” Valteria explained. “I have it on a hoist so I can work on it.”
“Ah, that would explain why I haven’t seen it around.”
Exiting the shop, stopping for Valteria to put a small ‘closed’ sign on the door, the two of them made their way around the building, where Xander saw the small shed that presumably held Valteria’s armor. It looked like it could just barely hold the armor and one person – two, if they were comfortable with each other – inside it.
“So this is where the magic happens?” Xander asked.
“If by ‘magic’ you mean maintenance and upgrades, then yes,” Valteria agreed. She opened the door of the shed, which comprised most of the front of the tiny little building, revealing her suit of armor, which was currently hanging from several chains attached to pulleys on the ceiling. Plates of armor were laying strewn about the suite, leaving the joints and inner workings more exposed.
Xander whistled, looking at the inner workings of the suit. He could see gears, cogs, and joints, and throughout the entirety of the armor were running filaments of silver wire, which he assumed were mana conduits running to and from elemental cores and the various mana powered aspects of the suit. “This thing really is impressive. Almost as impressive as the woman who made it,” he said.
Valteria giggled, “Stop it! You’re supposed to be fixing this mess, not flirting with me!”
“Awh, can’t I do both?” Xander asked, trying to sound as saccharine as possible.
“Mmm, I suppose that if you are sufficiently skilled at multitasking, I might allow it,” Valteria said in a mockingly thoughtful tone.
“Well, I just so happen to be an expert, so flirt away I shall,” Xander replied. “Now, how about the beauty in front of me shows me exactly where the other beauty in front of me needs some repairs?”
Valteria sighed at Xander’s antics, but he could see the slight flush in her face. “Well, you welded the wrist joints, elbows, and knees. They aren’t welded all the way round, it’s more like you smoothed over a portion of it like it was wet clay. So if you could just... put it back? Shape it back to how it was, that’s should be all that’s needed.”
“Pretty straightforward,” Xander said, standing behind Valteria as she pointed out each joint. He could see the misshapen parts where he’d slapped a weld onto the metal. He leaned over her and put his hands on the elbow joint that they were closest to and began to shape the metal back to its original form.
“You’re... very close,” Valteria murmured to him as he formed the metal.
“Would you like me not to be?” He asked, carefully.
Valteria was silent for a moment before answering, “No...” quietly.
Xander carefully shifted to be a little closer, but still not quite touching, as he moved on to the wrist joint of the same arm. The process itself was simple, but he was enjoying taking his time. As he finished the wrist, he turned to look at Valteria. He found himself looking right into her eyes, as she was staring back at him. Unable to resist the temptation he leaned in a little closer, gauging Valteria’s reaction. When she, too, leaned towards him, he closed the small gap between them, drawing her into another kiss. Valteria pressed herself against him, the shed hiding them from any prying eyes on the street, and let out a small noise as Xander squeezed her tight. She was breathing a little bit harder than before the kiss as they separated again.
Valteria let out a breath. “You’re… a really good kisser.”
“Yeah?” Xander said, pleased with himself. “You’re not so bad yourself.”
“And you’re a tease, looming over me like that in this tiny little shed,” Valteria continued. “Now you’ve got me all flustered, how am I supposed to work now?” She mock complained.
Xander was glad to see that Valteria was comfortable enough with him to joke like that. “Forgive me,” he said formally, making a deep bow, “How ever can I make it up to the lady?”
“Oh stop it, I will tolerate no bowing and scraping, even in jest,” Valteria said, slapping him lightly on the shoulder, as he was still holding the bow. “You can make it up to me by fixing the rest of these joints! And by taking me out to dinner?” She added, hopefully.
“I think that can be arranged,” Xander said. “Is there anywhere you have in mind? I will admit, I haven’t become very familiar with the local restaurant scene, what with my… dietary restrictions.”
“It doesn’t… make you feel bad to go out to a restaurant, does it?” Valteria asked softly, watching his face for a reaction.
“Nah, don’t worry,” Xander said, waving off the question with one hand. “It doesn’t bother me too much. Sure, I miss the taste of a good cut of steak, but I was never that into food. Eating was more of a thing I did because I had to, so I’m not completely devastated by the loss. And I can still get some vicarious enjoyment out of watching someone else enjoy their food. Really the worst part is awkwardly having to refuse ordering anything,” he said with a laugh.
“Alright, if you say so,” Valteria said, letting out a slight breath of relief. “I was just worried that it might be upsetting to you, is all. I know I would miss eating.” She paused for a moment, something clearly on her mind. “What do you miss? If you don’t mind my asking. I just… well, I’m curious what it’s like for you.”
“Mmm, in a lot of ways, life is still the same, and in other ways, I’m technically doing better than I was before. I’m incredibly resistant to damage now, even without my armor. I do miss sleeping, though. I try to give my mind a rest and just sort of daydream and let my thoughts wander or do some meditation during the nights, but it’s just not the same. Also means I’m the one that pulls guard duty through the night,” he grumbled. “Let’s see, what else, what else. Ah, right. I can’t smell anything. Or taste. I haven’t worked out how to recreate those senses, yet. Though no sense of smell can be handy sometimes, I suppose. I don’t know if you’ve done much merc work – you mentioned being surprised that I’m not just moonlighting – but uh… the smells that you encounter on a battlefield are… unpleasant. To say the least. It was weird not having a sense of touch either, but I’ve resolved that. It’s a little bit different than my previous, natural sense of touch, but I’ve become accustomed to it to the point that I don’t much think about the difference anymore. I think I’ve even got the density of receptors down in certain areas compared to others, so I'm more sensitive in some areas than others now, just like I used to be. I’m still immune to being tickled though, so don’t even think about it – that’s a fight you’ll lose.” Growing a bit more somber, Xander continued on. “I think… the biggest thing I miss is just the feeling that I fit in more. Now I always worry about being different, there’s that nagging fear that anyone I get to know well is going to reject me once they find out what I am. Like I’m secretly lying to everyone around me with this façade I have going on.”
Valteria nodded sadly. “I get that. I’ve been… rejected before, too. At least it happens or not right from the beginning for me. I get to know if they look down on me for being different immediately instead of fearing they might later down the road.”
“Yeah,” Xander said. “People can really suck sometimes. But at least I can just, like, not tell people what I am if I so chose. You, my teammates, and the guild, since it’s on my status sheet, are really the only people who know. I keep it pretty private. You can’t do that, so I think you probably have to deal with a lot worse than I do. Not that I’d want you to hide what or who you are,” he added. “I happen to be quite enamored with who you are,” he said, teasing a smile from Valteria’s sad face.
“Sorry to bring up such a dour topic,” Valteria apologized. “I didn’t think much on it before I asked.”
“No worries,” Xander told her. “Honestly, I think it’s good to be able to talk about it with someone. It’s healthy to be able to get you feelings out there. And it helps that I feel like you understand where I’m coming from with it, though from a slightly different perspective.”
“You’re surprisingly thoughtful sometimes,” Valteria said, only half teasing.
“Only sometimes?” Xander asked with a faux expression of hurt on his face. “By the way, you didn’t react much to my comment about moonlighting as a merc. Do you ever go on contracts?”
Valteria shrugged. “I certainly wouldn’t describe myself as a professional mercenary. Moonlighter is an apt descriptor, for me, I think. I have gone on a couple, here and there, mostly on kill contracts that would net me a core or organ that would be useful for my work.”
“Mm, that makes sense. I suppose it could be handy having access to the ability to take contracts that would give you access to specialty materials,” Xander said.
“It’s also good for business,” Valteria explained. “Mercs tend to like to buy from someone who has at least been out on a contract or two before.”
“Ah, that makes sense. What kind of things do you sell to mercenaries, anyways? I saw Jarrett with a crossbow yesterday, but I imagine you make other things, too.”
“Oh all kinds of little things. Portable, flameless heaters for cooking. Water purification sieves. Mm, let’s see… I’ve made a few custom order devices, too. One customer wanted to be able to shoot a jet of flame from their gauntlet, that was a fun one.”
“Ooh, that does sound fun… reminds me of my flamethrower.”
“Your flamethrower?”
“Yeah, it’s basically a big tank with a hose attached to it. At the end of the hose is a pump that causes the flammable liquid – I use dragon’s tar – to shoot out. Add a flame that the tar passes over and bam! You’ve got a giant stream of flame that will coat anything it hits with sticky, flammable tar,” Xander said, excitedly describing the device.
“That’s… impressive. And kind of horrifying,” Valteria responded.
“Mm… I guess you’re right. I mostly use it on giant spiders. Blugh,” Xander shuddered. “But yeah, I suppose it’s not the nicest of ways to go. Very effective for area denial, though. Ah, actually I have an idea for crossbow bolt head that would ignite when it shatters! We should make that sometime and see if it sells.”
“Hmm, I think that would draw some buyers. A flaming bolt head you didn’t have to light first could be desirable to certain buyers.”
“Put that on the list and we’ll get around to it sometime.”
“We have a list?” Valteria said confusedly.
“We should!” Xander said with a laugh. “Now let’s get the rest of these joints done.”
The repair of the other arm and the leg joints that Xander had locked into position during the tournament was a short affair. Looking over the bare metal frame of the armor still hanging from the ceiling, Xander clapped his hands together, mimicking dusting them off. “Good as new!” He exclaimed. Looking over to Valteria he asked concernedly, “It is good as new, right?”
Valteria had been staring at the armor as well, lost in thought about how she was going to improve it next. “Hmm? Oh, yes. It’s right as rain again, ready for use. Thank you, by the way. For fixing it,” She said awkwardly.
“Well I’m the one who broke it, so it’s only fair that I fix it. So what do you want to work on next?” Xander asked. “I could do some rune work for you. Orrr… we could kiss some more?”
Valteria flushed at the question, but didn’t immediately say no.
A few minutes later, she found herself on her tip toes and lightly pressed against the interior wall of the shed, her lips pressed against Xanders.
Once the two of them were done acting like teenagers parked in a secluded parking lot, they made their way back into the shop. Stepping inside and closing the door behind them, Valteria let out a breath. “I think… you are going to have to do a lot of rune work to make up for how much you just kissed me, Xander.”
“What, you didn’t like it?” He said with a raised eyebrow.
“I didn’t say that,” Valteria said with a smirk.

Trying to get my pawn his Drake fighting badge and hunting down the drakes on the map. Noticed there was one in an area I hadn’t even unlocked 70+ hours into the game. Decided to chase it down and aggro it. Mid fight, I kid you not, I start being picked up and thrown by venin harpies. Only to then be dropped into a pack of wolves who proceed to drag me over to a small pack of asps. Meanwhile my pawns are fighting this drake for their lives. I keep trying to get back to them only to have these fucking harpies continue to screw with me. I keep plugging along killing monster after monster trying to get back to my drake only to have a fucking griffin fly on top of me. At this point I’m seething. I clearly underestimated how important it was to clear other monsters in the area before taking on this drake. This fight was hard, I was frustrated as hell, but I noticed after some time my adrenaline was pumping and my reaction time is increasing and I’m taking down monster after monster. I find myself laughing maniacally and saying to myself “Welp, it can’t get any worse than this” and I proceed to complete one of the most epic battles I’ve ever faced in game. This felt top notch to me. The way that it felt as if everything had to be just right but also completely random for this to happen really sprang a new sense of love for this game in me. I know most people are going to do NG+ for this game, but when I complete it, I genuinely want to experience it from the beginning again. I think I may make another account just to do this. I already can’t wait to hop back on again today. I’ve seen alot of hate for this game and it’s clunkiness but with that aside, if you can look past the few issues with graphics and NPCs fading in/out etc and just allow yourself to give it a fair chance, you can genuinely have a great play through. Hell, with all that’s going on in the world I haven’t allowed myself to feel anything for weeks and just that one fight had me experiencing laughter, frustration, sorrow, love (for my pawns who kept fighting and had my back) excitement and accomplishment. Anyone else love this game? Can we share some appreciation moments in the comments? Tell me about the wildest experience, most memorable battle, or most fun you’ve had in game! I want to hear all of this games epicness!

[First] [Previous] [Next]
When did I allow this to happen? How is it ten at night already? I just played a couple of rounds and it’s already dark outside!

“You should know already that your perception of time is FUBAR**. Not to mention these hobbies of ours really don’t help grasping what’s going on.**”

It didn’t use to be like this.

“Oh yeah? Can you remember how long you’ve been using the computer?”

Of course I can. It’s been in my life since I was like six or something, when Dad brought home that used computer with all the Dobrand games! But I didn’t pay much attention to it back then…

“That’s not how I remember it. We used to spend entire afternoons playing with the Encyclopedia, and trying out those games we barely understood. Maybe going into the Cartoon Central website too, even if we couldn’t read very well. Face it, we’ve always been addicted to distractions…”

Ok, maybe a little, but–

“And even before we started to use the internet more seriously, we’ve never been very into sleeping at all. Remember how we used to check the channels back then? Zapping and looking for stuff on the TV? Back then everything was so scary and novel at these hours… Now it feels just like a routine. We’ve always been night owls.”

Frowning and feeling the voice creeping on me more than usual, I finally close the game and my computer, standing up and turning on the lights to look at my room. The floor is still filthy, the plates are still scattered about… opening my closet, I not only see what remains of my clean clothes and the old montgomery hanging, but also the old bamboo blade I used to train with.

“Yeah. Remember that? How everyone looks for a local sport to practice and you chose fucking kendo**? Not sure if that was just the weaboo in you, or you are just that pretentious.**”

I pick up the long stick and take a look at it from the sides. Four bamboo sticks, held together tightly by leather straps and string. It’s elegant in its simplicity, firm enough to hurt a little when hit by it, but not strong enough to really harm, mostly thanks to the white leather covering its tip. The handle has the dark stains of sweat coming from the months of use.

“Before you left it incomplete, like everything in your life.”

Sigh.

I put the blade back in the closet and then turn around, grabbing the many plates and cups that were piling up in the room and walking the dark way over to the kitchen to clean them up.

“Cleaning plates in the middle of the night. That’s the kind of stuff Venus did back when she was here, just to call your attention.”

Ignoring this annoying voice is getting harder… I am tempted to pick up the S.O.S. pill, but if I do that I can say goodbye to my agency for the entire night and maybe even a few hours after waking up. Urgh.

“Guess you’re stuck with me, huh?”

Biting my lower lip, I try to focus on the task at hand, cleaning each plate as carefully as I can and trying to ignore the feeling of grease building up on my hands. Saints above, it is so disgusting! I can’t stand it, really. But if I keep letting the plates stack up, I’ll never do it.

“Look at you trying to be responsible. So silly. You’ll just let them stack up again soon enough.”

“What matters is that you are trying your best.”

Ah, there She is. Still talking from the corner of the room… Her kindness has always felt fabricated to me. Fake.

“It’s hard to accept mercy from yourself.”

You are not me.

The glugging of the drain interrupts me before I can start arguing again. With a heavy sigh, I let the water run away to clean my hands for a moment, and then, now that everything is clean and in place, I close it and walk back to my cave and take a seat back beside the window, opening the blinds just to see the darkness of a misty winter night in Saüle.

“Maybe it’s time to sleep after all.”

“You’ll just start rolling around, kicking and stirring all night.”

“You’ll eventually fall asleep!”

“Or maybe you won't. Let’s just keep playing until the Sun rises.”

I’ll do you both one better and just go back to the living room to check Dejima.

“Oh right! It has been a few hours, hasn’t it?”

“If you are so eager to be disappointed…”

Taking the computer back to the dining table and reconnecting it to the Tripolar Edge Router is easy enough, and yet I still feel the anticipation killing me. My hands tremble a bit as I type the address again, and even more when I have to wait the eternity until it loads.

My post… it got answers! Four answers to be exact! It’s not much but, considering how few users are online at a given time here, it’s good!

“omg it’s so cute when people actually come and use the ‘Introductions’ spot. I mean it, it’s great. It’s also cool to see new faces here, welcome! My dms are open if you want to ask anything.” — GalaxyTaco

“Hey there! We are all glad to have you here! If you have any doubts or questions, throw them my way and I’ll see to answer them whenever I can!” — Ventotto

“Fresh meat, bring out the paddles! Just kidding, welcome in, kid. Hope to see ya in the chatbox one day.” — jeepcreep

“Welcome. Complete your profile data.". — ογδόντα

Three of these are mods, so that was to be expected… but this ‘GalaxyTaco’ guy. He seems like a nice fella. Maybe trying to gun for mod too, or maybe just a legitimately friendly person! Whatever the case, the Helenian mod had made a fantastic point. I did have to complete the profile stuff.

“Does it have to be now? It’s late…”

Yes, it does. I click back to my profile and, well, it asks stuff like ‘Email’, ‘Country’, ‘Languages Spoken’ and ‘Gender’, all easy to answer.

Email: [simple.times@gamail.com](mailto:simple.times@gamail.com)
Country: Wohl.
Languages Spoken: Wohlian, Dobrand.
Gender: I’d rather not say.

“What sort of stupid answer was that?! Are you really this delusional!?”

Please. Just… let me have this…

“Don’t come crying when they learn you’re a man and you get all embarrassed.“

“Are they a man? Have you not stopped for a second to think that maybe they would be more comfortable as a–”

Shut up.

Both of you. You are looking way too deep into this. I’ll leave it as it is and that’s final.

With a huff, I go to the next section of the profile… ‘Referred to by:’

Oh no.

“Well, time to skip that one.”

There was no way I could just say ‘Ah, I found it in a book’ without getting strange looks. Not to mention the book itself told me not to talk about it for anything.

Next.

‘Mystical Specialization’.

“Saints damn it.”

I could just copy the specialization from some other profile, but then what if they decided to ask me about it? Well, that wouldn’t be a problem if I decided not to get in the chatbox at all… but I won’t advance in my investigation at all if I don’t talk to people, right?

I decide to just leave it open, for now.

Finally, I just gotta put a ‘Comment’ in the end of my profile… hmmm…

Comment: ‘Please don’t kill me.’

“A little on the nose?”

It’s all in good humor. I hope.

With that done, I don’t waste time on making a signature for myself (yet) and go straight to check on the Chatbox.

Four people: ‘GalaxyTaco’, ‘Ventotto’, ‘souseiseki’ and… uh… ‘Canned Tea’.

I take a deep breath… and log in.

Tav has connected to the Chatbox.
souseiseki: byeeee canny!! <3
GalaxyTaco: bye dude
Canned Tea has disconnected from the Chatbox.
souseiseki: … who tf are u o.o

Fuck. That was fast. Immediately singled out and everything, oh no. I panic, unable to really write any answers, when suddenly:

GalaxyTaco: sou that’s tav! the new peep? you saw the introductions post right??
souseiseki: oh right o.o i don’t care for those
GalaxyTaco: how’s it going dude? man, if youre wohlian it must be fucking late!
Tav: Hi, hi n.nUu
Tav: Yeah, it’s a bit late but I can’t sleep u.u
GalaxyTaco: hah, been there…
Canned Tea has connected to the Chatbox.

The guy came back again? What gives??

Canned Tea: sorry tav, didn’t see you come in.
Canned Tea: don’t want you to think Im avoiding ya.

The fear WAS in my brain, to be honest. I can’t help but smile a bit when the guy returns to clarify.

Tav: Oh it’s all good! n.n thank you though uwu
souseiseki: don’t cuddle this f**got Canny o.o

I wince. Oof. That’s… wow.

Canned Tea: sou.
Canned Tea: i’ve told you not to shittalk like that, girl.
souseiseki: sorry, slipped off my mind
Canned Tea: anyways, now im going to sleep.
Canned Tea: welcome in Tav. i’ll be seeing ya later.
Tav: For sure! n.n bye Canned Tea!
Canned Tea: just call me canny, girl.
Canned Tea: see ya.
Canned Tea has disconnected from the Chatbox.

I feel my face burning for a moment there. Am I blushing!? Fuck.

“Welp, you’re proving souseiseki right, at least.”

Shut the fuck up.

@ Ventotto: Hmm. I’ve told him not to assume gender like that.
GalaxyTaco: Holy shit 28 ur alive!!! O.o
GalaxyTaco: Now THAT is surprising.
@ Ventotto: I was about to leave but, like Canny, I wanted to say welcome again to Tav.
Ventotto: I hope you find your spot here soon. If you have anything you’d want translated and analyzed, go to the Translation subforum. Ok?
Tav: For sure! Thank you uwu
@ Ventotto: See you all later.
@ Ventotto has disconnected from the Chatbox.
souseiseki: i’m not staying here with you losers o.o
souseiseki: bye.
souseiseki has disconnected from the Chatbox

“Well bitch I didn’t want to talk with you either!” I practically snarl in real life, taking a deep breath and rubbing my temples. “Urgh. Not even an hour in and I’m already fed up with someone…”

GalaxyTaco: bah pay her no mind dude.
GalaxyTaco: she’s just Like That™
Tav: I’ll try…
Tav: Thank you for the welcome post, by the way uwu
Tav: I was worried no one would answer… u.u
GalaxyTaco: not gonna lie dure, that was a big possibility!
GalaxyTaco: people here ain’t the most social, honestly.
GalaxyTaco: speaking of, that reminds me!
GalaxyTaco: how DID you find the forum? if someone gave you the link but didn’t show you the ropes, that’s kind of an asshole move to pull!

Damn it all. That question again! This guy seemed nice so he probably didn’t mean anything by it but, it was a little frustrating to have to give explanations like that. Then again, this was supposed to be a secret of sorts, so I shouldn’t be that surprised I guess? But well, surprised or not, I need an answer to give. Come on, brain, make up something! An excuse! Anything!

“How the Hells do you want us to make up something if we know nothing of mages and such!? Are you stupid!?”

“We do know something. This ‘Elysium’ place seems to be important, maybe mentioning it would be enough to throw GalaxyTaco off your scent!”

“He’s not an idiot. Using jargon without really understanding it is a great way to look like an outsider.”

“Remind me again why we can’t just tell him the truth…?”

“The woman from the book, Humiko, told us not to talk about it if we can avoid it.”

“Well then, can we avoid it now…?”

…

GalaxyTaco: ah shit dude, sorry to cut this short but I gotta go get lunch
GalaxyTaco: talk to you later!
GalaxyTaco has disconnected from the Chatbox.

I deflate for a moment there, closing my eyes. Lucky break, I guess! Or at least, I think it is … until I get a notification from the forum: a direct message! Clicking the icon, I can see it’s from GalaxyTaco.

Sorry for the intense question but, it’s kind of important.
If you don’t fill your profile soon, 82’s totally gonna ban you.
You weren’t referred here by anyone you can mention, huh?
Let’s talk more privately.
[tacomadeofgalaxies@messages.com](mailto:tacomadeofgalaxies@messages.com)
Don’t disconnect from the TER when talking, that way no sleeper government can check on us.
I’ll be up after lunch.
Trust me, it’s important.—- GalaxyTaco

Oh shit. I was read like a book.

A part of me is relieved the guy is worried about me… but then, the suspicions arise. What if this guy is working with the mods? Or worse, with the cloaks! I haven’t even encountered these people and yet their presence around me fills me with dread and anxiety, mostly because I have no idea what to expect from them!

But another part of me is simply desperate for having someone to talk to about this, and he did say that while I keep the TER (which I assume is the Tripolar Edge Router) on, no orgs can check on me. So maybe…

“You’re gonna regret that.”

Maybe. But we will see about that when we get there.

Welp I fell for it. I sent one stupid picture, honestly it isn’t that bad because it is just a straight DP and in a separate picture is my face. I fell for it a few nights ago and blocked but they added me again on a different account and said if I blocked they would leak and sent me screenshots of my instagram following. I folded and paid what I said was all I had because I’m not a fool. I sent them $50 through a razer gold gift card. They went on to say $50 wasn’t enough for them to delete. Obviously they are going to want more but I insisted that I was broke and they made a “deal” $100 every two weeks for 4 months till they get their total. I have zero intentions of playing along to this so I went and said I don’t have a job etc but I would get one if they give me time. So I bought myself a couple of weeks right now. I already deactivated one of my instagrams and my Facebook and put a post up on my private main account warning my friends or family of a potential hack/leak. I’m going to leave that account up for a day so people see it etc but then going to deactivate it. Honestly it isn’t so bad because if you think about it, it’s just one picture in the drop of the internet of millions. Also it doesn’t directly have my face on the DP so I could just deny etc. I’m not worried or anything but just want to share because this just happened maybe an hour ago from posting this.

"Great days and glorious victory! My name is Spifflemonk and welcome to my Letsplay! Today I am back from my medically mandated break from playing human videogames after a rather... cathartic experience with a game called Teardown. Subnautica, even among humans, is labeled as a notorious experience with... mixed reception for its sequel. A survival crafting game apparently. I have experience with those so presumably the gameplay loop should be predictable enough. So... Let's go in!"
Spiffle starts the game, going for standard Survival Mode, with aspects of food and water mechanics alongside health and oxygen. The game loads very, very fast with Spiffles overpowered computer, and the introduction sequence begins. The camera pans to the panicked sight of the payer character moving down a ladder followed by a sight of a starship above exploding.
"Oh dear... oh dear! They weren't kidding about survival! Do I even survive this or am I a ghost or something..."
The pod rattles, the screen shakes, a fire extinguisher falls from its mounting. Velocity causes the pod to dislodge a panel from a wall and it flies around the cabin. The panel flies into the player's screen, making it go black.
"Oh... well okay then. I uh... well."
Spiffles' character awakens and panics at the buttons securing him to the seat. Spiffle quickly figures out that fire in this game is in fact bad, and grabs the fire extinguisher, putting the fire out. The game's introduction plays, showing his PDA, the game's inventory UI.
"Oh! I have seen these things in real life when visiting human stations! Do all humans have these?"
Spiffle starts exploring the escape pod, noting all of the damage to the radio beacon and the wiring panel.
"Hmm... craft the repair tool... Well... For later I suppose. Now how do i-AH, the ladder!"
Spiffle clicks on the ladder and goes through the animation. The character exits and dramatically stands. Spiffle looks around. His face visibly pales as he looks in every direction, finding the only thing nearby that looks 'safe’ or like 'land' is the destroyed ship in the distance.
"Water... it's... water... everywhere! How big is this game's map!? Structural hull failure... zero human lifesigns detected. That's.. not nice. Well... Here we go!"
Spiffle jumps into the water. His mood changes, the underwater environment significantly different than above ground. The water is absolutely teeming with life and color, as Spiff swims towards a reef to stare at some coral. Spiff gets distracted and starts chasing a fish, specifically a Peeper, and grabs it.
"Oh! Good god! THAT'S how humans catch fish!? That's very... inefficient! What is this thing? Can I eat it? I know I'm supposed to take care of my food and water, so how do I eat it?"
Spiffle wanders about for a while, gathering resources and exploring his general location, eventually getting back to the pod. He had gathered up a decent amount of stuff while he was swimming around and accessed the Fabricator to see what was available.
"Ah! I see, the fabricator cooks things too. Uhm... cooked fish thing and... these transparent fish give me water bottles? Okay then! Well. Sorted for food anyway. Let's see. Copper wire, batteries. A Scanner? Does that mean I can like, scan things and tell what they are? And... Oxygen tank? Oh hell yes. I'll build that then."
Spiffle goes through the process of building a few things, checking out how the game's crafting system works, and spending more time collecting resources. He quickly realizes how much work he has to do and finally finishes making a Scanner.
"Okay then well... I can see how much time is going to be spent collecting resources so i'm going to edit all of that out and keep you all in the loop on all the fun parts instead."
Spiffle continues playing, inserting a creative, albeit mildly annoying fanciful scene transition in between resource loops. He comes to a cave looking for salt to make more equipment, when he encounters the first hostile enemy of the game: The Crashfish. He does not notice it at first, the strange sloppy noise it makes as its pod opens, the beast makes a terrible gurgly noise and charges straight at him.
"What is that noi-AH! OY! OI! OIIII what are you what are-!"
Spiffle is cut off as the fish explodes, causing him to lose half his health. He quickly surfaces and takes a breath.
"Okay then... OKAY... THAT... makes absolutely no sense from an evolutionary perspective... but okay then. Avoid those. What even was that? I can't even scan it because it was moving so fast! Gods... exploding fish."
Spiffle shakes his head and resumes his hunt for resources, eventually finding enough for a repair tool. He makes the repair of the pods' broken wiring and looks around a bit more, noting some of the details in the game.
"Hard to believe these games are over eight hundred years old! I keep getting requests to play 'them gud ol' gamez' instead of any new releases. Maybe I'll get to those eventually. I have quite the backlog though."
Spiffle quickly tabs out and shows the huge list of human made games on his list that he has been gifted or purchased himself. The list includes Space Marine, Starship Troopers, Spyro Trilogy, Crash Bandicoot, and so... so many more.
"I am also told about this thing called 'anime', whatever that is. Maybe I should look into that. Anyway..."
Spiffle shrugs for now and resumes playing, swimming around for a bit before finally deciding to use his scanner. He gets the first scan - the Acid Mushroom - and painstakingly reads the supplied article. He then goes on a scanning frenzy, scanning each thing he can find, comically chasing after various fish and objects, trying to scan them then taking an irritatingly long time to read the article aloud.
He gets to the point where he encounters his first real hostile enemy and tries to scan it. The stalker, of course, doesn't appreciate that, and attacks.
"Oooh what's this thing? Oh lovely, it's a big one. Can I scan it? The... Stalker? Oh okay is it friend-OW! NONONONO go away!"
Spiffle panics and scans it while running away from it, trying to swim backwards. He's so focused on scanning it he can't run far enough away that he gets ambushed by another Stalker nearby and manages to scan it just as he gets hit with his first Death in the game.
"Oh.... o...kay. Well... it seems things aren't as friendly as expected. I'm going to guess there's more things like that around. So... I'm just going to finish working on repairs and equipment then I'll take those things on."
Spiffle reads the article on the Stalker he scanned and spends more time collecting resources, scanning local entities and building the rest of the gear he has. Fins, high capacity O2 tank, rebreather and some more food and water which he stores in floating containers for later. He starts to explore a bit farther in search of fragments to scan and finds a Sand Shark, as well as a biome resembling a desert-like area. He encounters his first piece of the wrecked ship here.
"Oh! Hello! Pieces of wreckage! What are these for now do you suppose? Can I disassemble these for resources or-Oh! Is that a door? Oh! I'm supposed to go in here and look for things? How do I get in? Oh I can't. I need a laser cutter. Is one of those here? Need more fragments I guess..."
Spiffle gives up trying to enter and goes up for air, then returns to the floor to hunt for fragments. He eventually unlocks the Bioreactor, pieces of the Scanner room, a couple fragments of the Seaglide and Seamoth. He comes across the first cave entrance to the Mushroom Caves Biome.
"Oh... oh my. That's... deep. Good thing I unlocked the Seamoth thing. Its a miniature submarine I think. I can use that. But that's... kinda scary. I can't see the bottom. I kinda see just... purple. Mostly purple. But it scares me that I can't see the bottom."
Spiffle hangs around the cave entrance for a bit before a call for Oxygen forces him to the surface. He swims back down to the cave entrance and then hangs around a bit longer before once again resurfacing, heading for some new things to scan. It is however at this point that Spiffles exploration is cut short.
"EMERGENCY - SEISMIC READINGS SUGGEST A QUANTUM DETONATION HAS OCCURRED IN THE AURORA'S DRIVE CORE. THE CENTRAL DARK MATTER REACTOR WILL REACH A SUPERCRITICAL STATE IN -"
The computer aboard the PDA shakes Spiff out of his daze and he quickly rushes to the surface and looks at the ship.
"Wait wait wait what's that!? What's going on!? I see the ship? The Aurora! That's what its name is? Whats a Dark Matter reactor and wha-"
The computer continues its countdown muffled by Spiffs panicked squealing and he has a front-row seat to one of the most spectacular explosions in the history of gaming - the Aurora's Reactor Detonation.
It happens. The world goes dead silent for a short moment, and one can see Spiffles heart visibly stop beating. Then explosion as the Aurora lets out its magnificent blast. As the shockwave expands outwards, Spiffs skin visibly turns a paler shade of blue, and his eyes go wide. The sound of a geiger counter follows, leaving him breathless and pale as the world suddenly goes dead quiet again. The sound of the geiger counter ominously leaving him shaken even more than he already is.
"FOR YOUR CONVENIENCE - THE RADIATION SUIT HAS BEEN ADDED TO YOUR BLUEPRINTS."
Spiffle stays completely silent, bobbing in the water for a solid few minutes, staring in shocked wonder at what he just witnessed. He regains his composure for a few short moments and returns to his scanning venture, but one can easily see he isn't in the right mind after that. He returns to the seabed, at the entrance to the mushroom caves and dives again. He does this several more times, popping up to the surface, looking at the shipwreck, then diving at the entrance again. Finally, after much hesitation, he dives one last time.
"Screw it. it's just a game right?"
He smiles at the camera with a shrug and swims far below the surface, into one of the caves. As he enters the cavern his jaw drops at the sight of a massive underwater cavern filled with gigantic glowing pink mushrooms. The Mushroom caves as they are known. He spots something in the distance, entranced, forgetting his oxygen situation. He cant get far however and a terrifying shriek of some unknown entity shakes him out of his stupor.
"What in the red dawn was that noise!?"
Spiff can't finish asking his invisible audience what's going on as he strays too close to a mushroom, occupied by a Crab Snake, a gigantic sea worm. He is grabbed from behind, spun around and he visibly panics as the giant worm digs its enormous tusks into Spiffles character. Spiffle immediately freaks out, a combination of both the terrifying shriek emitted by the creature and the shock of being attacked makes poor Spiffle jump out of his seat and duck under the table.
"GOWAYGOWAYGOWAGOWAYGOWAY!!!"
The worm comes back and finishes Spiff off before his oxygen runs out. Spiff's character respawns but the footage continues, a slight whimper can be heard in the background as Spiff hides under the desk. This carries on for a few minutes, and his head very slowly appears above the desk. He gingerly puts himself back in his seat and breathes heavily for a bit. When he finally gains control, he tabs out of the game and takes a look at the wiki for Subnautica. He returns a few moments later and stares at the camera in that strange haunting glare he's become so famous for.
"WHY DO YOU STUPID DEVELOPERS NOT PUT GUNS IN THE GAME IF YOU HAVE SHIT LIKE THAT!? ARE YOU INSANE!?"
He grabs the camera and shakes it violently as he rants at it, questioning why there are guns in every other human game he has played and not THIS specific game, especially considering how there are 'giant water snake monsters that eat your face' in a game with no guns. He rants for a good minute or two then plays his outro.
TOP COMMENT: "Are you absolutely sure after Teardown, Factorio and Project ZOMBOID, you should be playing Subnautica? I mean seriously, try something less... psychologically terrifying. It's known as Thalassophobia Simulator for a reason."
_______________________________________________________________
"Great days and glorious victory! My name is Spifflemonk and I still don't understand why we have giant worm monsters but we have no guns!"
Spiffle stares at the camera with an expression that can only be summarized as 'Seriously bruh?' and resumes his last playthrough. He becomes confused at the lack of stuff in his inventory.
"Why is my... Why do I not ha-Oh right... I was eaten. When you die your inventory is wiped... I need to build more tools then."
Spiffle starts some silly music, an alien version of Benny Hill to a montage of him collecting resources, occasionally ranting at various oddities and questioning game logic. He restores all of his tools then goes hunting for a Vehicle Bay fragment so he can build the Seamoth. He continues to scan what he can, developing something of an obsession with the task, then painstakingly reading every word about it to try and understand it. It is at this point Spiffle, during his explorations finds another derelict chunk of ship near the desert region, encountering his first Sand Shark.
"What... What is this? Oh... careful Spiff. This one looks angrier than the last one you found. Wh-What in oblivion!?"
Spiffles attention is once again diverted by the appearance of a Reefback Leviathan and its signature low drone. This one appears to be a fully grown adult.
"You-you... You've got to be... You gotta be fucking kidding me. A Juhara Eelfish!? WHAT IS THAT DOING IN A HUMAN VIDEOGAME!!!??"
Spiffle squeaks in shock as he sees a creature that is an absolute spitting image of a large oceanic dwelling sea creature, which is both the games and his native homeworlds version of a Whale. The Reefback has some dissimilarities, but its close enough to the real thing that Spiffle is genuinely shocked. He quickly pauses the game, opening various wikipedia articles, then displays a full picture of both Subnautica in game Reefback, and the Juhara-Kal-Rehar, colloquially known as a Juhara Eelfish, a shockingly similar creature that lives in his homeworlds oceans.
The only difference between them is the color of the exterior chitin shell. The Reefback has a blue/purple shell, the Juhara Eelfish's chitin has a red/green shell.
"WHEN was this game made!?"
Spiff checks, the current Earth-date is the year 2886. Humanity only entered the galactic community in 2752. Subnautica was released in 2018.
"HOW.... How is that even possible!? You didn't even know the galaxy existed until only a few decades ago, yet you almost PERFECTLY matched the appearance of one of our homeworlds native species! How is this even possible!? Okay. If the name matches then I have to call bullshit."
Spiffle approaches and scans it, then reads the data article.
"A... Reefback Leviathan? Oh thank God... Now let's see... A herbivorous creature that... that likely got so large due to the fact that its predators went extinct. Well... that's... okay... A hard chitinous shell of multiple layers, a microcosm of different creatures and flora growing from its back, hence the name. Hmmm..."
Spiffle gets that cold, empty stare on his face and glares menacingly at the camera. The screen goes black, then returns, seeing Spiffle nursing a beverage of some kind while wrapped in a blanket.
"I realized something... Call it a message from the Ancestors or a Divine revelation. But I have a funny feeling this isn't going to be the last time I see a creature from the galaxy represented in human media. I hope to the Gods that doesn't happen... the concept of this situation is nothing short of terrifying. In any case, I'm sorry about that. Lets.... let's continue."
Spiffle resumes where he left off, doing his usual routine of scanning, then obsessively reading. Eventually he unlocks the Vehicle Bay, and returns home to his pod where the situation with resources is growing obscene with at least fifty floating resource containers hovering around the area.
"Alright... A Vehicle Bay... This means I can build things like the Seamoth now. This will be nice. Right, I shall for the sake of my audience skip the resource collection mechanic that's here and focus on the actual result. I shan't waste my time either though. MONTAGE!"
Spiff yells excitedly and a montage to that same odd Benny Hill type music plays out, with him collecting the resources he needs to build both machines. Most of it is already in the floating containers strewn about. With a few visits to the fabricator, he compiles the Power Cell, Titanium Ingot and Lubricant he needs to make the Vehicle Bay. He deploys it and chases it to the surface just away from the pod in the deeper end of the shallows.
"Right... Not too hard. Let's see then, how do-Ah. Get on it and... The Seamoth. Cost of two glass, one titanium ingot, a powercell, lead and lubricant. Right."
He quickly gathers and makes everything he needs for the Seamoth, then stands on the platform ready to go. He chooses the Seamoths recipe and the sequence starts. His eyes light up as drones start flying around the platform, then begin assembling atom by atom, the small, adorable minisub known as the Seamoth. It finishes the process and flops into the water with a splash.
"My gods look at this thing! It's so cute!"
Spiffle explores the sub for a little while and hops inside it, testing the controls and playing around with it a bit to see what it can do.
"Hm... Maximum Depth, 200 meters? So if I go below that does it implode or something? I need to be careful of that. OH dammit I remember! I have to make that Radiation Suit don't I? I shall do so now!"
Spiffle seems to have found a new resolve, quickly gathering resources together and making both a Seaglide and radiation suit in short order.
"Does this thing have any weapons? How do I repair-Oh... Repair tool? That makes it easier I suppose. Now... Where do I go now? Is there anything I can do?"
Spiffle stumbles about in the blind for a few minutes, trying to figure out his next course of action beyond simply wandering aimlessly while scanning things. He gets back in the pod and fixes the radio beacon. His face visibly contorts into an expression of irritation when he hears his rescue is in 9999 hours. He resolves to come back every now and then to check the radio. He decides to gather more resources to make up for building the seamoth and comes back a bit later. He finds a radio transmission when he returns.
"RADIO: ▀▖┗▛Nine new biological subjects designated. Mode ▄▖▜▚┣: hunting/analyzing.
Sharing subject locations with other agents."
"What... in the Nine Hells was THAT!? Why was it in such an odd voice? What was that language? What were those letters!? Somethings going on here... SO now what? I have the radiation suit. i guess... go into the Aurora? Oh no, I'm not going in there unprepared! Lemme make some tools and spare batteries, then i'll go in. I need... Oh... I need more fragments is what I need."
Spiffle resumes his fragment hunt, looking around for fragments of various tools. He uses the Seamoth to traverse around.
"WHEEE!!!"
Spiff seems more than just a bit happy as he trundles around in the Seamoth, using his speed to launch himself out of the water. He splashes about a bit, testing the limits of the craft and trying to see what holes he can squeeze himself into or out of and how deep he can go.
"Okay okay. time to get to serious work. Now... I need to find... A Laser Cutter and a... STASIS RIFLE?! Wait... rifle? That means GUN! I NEED A GUN!!"
Spiffle charges forward towards the desert biome where he found the Reefback and resumes his search for things to scan. It is now he comes across a Reginald.
"What... IS this fish? Wait, let me just..."
He gets out of the Seamoth and scans it.
"Huh... Reginald. That's a... fish? It's so cute! Wait, come back friend!"
Spiffle spends an unreasonable amount of time trying to catch a Reginald. When he finally catches one he gets back in the Seamoth and heads towards the aurora, new friend in tow. He trundles over to the side of the crashed ship and scans some random stuff here and there, finding fragments to a few small items, including a few he needs such as a Powercell Charger for the Seamoth’s battery. He gets close to the front of the ship and the haunting, evil noise of Subnautica's most iconic killer suddenly echoes through the gloomy water.
"What... Was that? Is it another worm thing? Please don't let it be one of those..."
Spiffle wanders around the side for a bit longer. An ominous shadow looms in the background, catching his eye. He ignores it for the moment and simply carries on, eventually arriving at the entrance to the ship. Through the mangled steel and fire he squeezes into the front of the ship and looks around. The environment ominously rattles and his screen shakes as the ships structure isn't exactly stable. The howl of the creature in the shadows makes Spiff even more uncomfortable.
"I... Do NOT like this. I really dont."
Spiff parks the Seamoth where he can see a ramp leading up, and gets out. He is immediately accosted by Cave Crawlers and uses his knife to defend himself, poorly, but he gets rid of the three or four around him.
"WARNING: SCANS SHOW THE DIGESTIVE TRACTS OF INDIGENOUS LIFE FORMS CONTAIN HUMAN TISSUE."
Spiffs face turns an even paler shade of blue and he swallows visibly as if he's trying not to vomit.
"Yeuch... I can scan this thing and read it later. I don't want to be here any longer than I have to."
Spiff scans and follows the path to the interior, uses his fire extinguisher to put out some fires in the area and gets inside. The ship rumbles as he wanders around and gets into one of the rooms. He finds the poster of the P.R.A.W.N. Suit.
"Ooh! A poster thing? Can I take it or? I can! PRAWN Suit eh? Can I actually use that thing?"
Spiff takes the poster, scans some furniture and collects a PDA. Spiff continues down the corridor and retrieves his Propulsion Cannon from his inventory and uses it to pick up some furniture in the way.
"I am SO glad I got this thing from scanning the area before I came here. This is super useful! I wonder if it has other uses..."
He gets to the door and looks at his databank.
"Hmm... Here it is! Code for the door is 1454. Right."
Spiff moves through, repairing a door to get the Seamoth Depth Upgrade Module. He continues and clears a fire to enter the main reactor. His inner loot goblin shines through and grabs the Cyclops engine efficiency module before he starts work on repairs, scanning the breach and starting work. It doesn't take him long, but he gets issues with a Bleeder that lives in the waters. He scans one then finishes repairs. Foolishly, he uses the propulsion cannon and shoots the bleeder at one of the reactors, undoing his work. He looks at the damage he caused and repairs it.
"Well... what was I expecting... Why did I do that? It's a CANNON... why did I aim it at the reactor exactly? So stupid..."
Spiff finishes and heads to the PRAWN Bay, and looks around at the damage. He spots the prawn suits and starts scanning, grabbing a storage module upgrade from a console and starts extinguishing flames so he can scan. He runs out of fire extinguisher juice though.
"Blast! Can I still scan these if they're on fire?"
Spiff walks around, finding cheeky angles he can use and scans the debris, finding all four fragments he needs. He heads upstairs and goes through the rooms and everything he can find. He gets into the Galley and sees the Kitty in a Space Helmet Poster.
"What the- 'Keep Calm'? What in the blue balls is this? It's.... cute! What is this creature!? Can I keep this? I can!"
Spiffle excitedly grabs the poster and moves on. He goes through cabins, picks up PDAs and collects the Natural Selection 2 poster, the Prawn suit in the sea poster and the collectible arcade toy in the locked cabin. Lacking the code to the Captain's cabin, he returns to the prawn bay and tries swimming around, eventually finding a passage in the hull debris to the rest of the ship. He moves through in silence, recovers the black box data and exits the ship. He removes debris, grabs the local wildlife with the cannon and tosses them into fires or the water with glee.
"BEGONE BEAST!!! Ha! Right... uhh... where did i park? Oh, there it is. Should I go home? I wonder if there are any fragments I can use around here?"
Spiff exits, finding Liefpod 4 floating upside down on the surface of the water. He collects the PDA data and a new blueprint. Then, as he gets in the seamoth, the horrifying roar of the Reaper Leviathan suddenly sounds. Spiff is thrown into a panic, screams in terror and tries desperately to get away. The beast appears with jaw chomping and claws clawing at the poor Seamoth. The entire time Spiffle is screeching like a bird with a broken leg, his entire body now an almost ghostly white out of absolute terror.
"GOWAYGOWAYGOWAYGOWAYGODNONNONOGOWAYGOWAY!!!"
Spiffle manages to get out of its grip and in a panic charges away towards his lifepod and continues to scream, breathing hard between screams. He gets to the pod and then hides under his desk, continuing to scream. His channel outro plays.
TOP COMMENT: (This has been translated from Eridani) "I am starting to believe this whole sojourn was a very BAD idea. Do you humans have those kinds of beasts on your homeworld? How did you ever survive them?!"
RESPONSE: LOL no we never had Reapers. The only Leviathan Class creatures we have on our planet are Whales. And they're mostly peaceful plankton eaters. Mostly.
RESPONSE: (Translated from Eridani) "Seriously? I think I find it more terrifying that these creatures are made up in your minds. What kind of nightmares do you people have to be able to create this level of fiction!?"
RESPONSE: Do. Not. Ask. This is only Subnautica - we have FAR worse.
Spiffles response: "You're going to make me play these 'far worse', aren't you?"
RESPONSE: "Damn right we are! :)"
________________________________________________________
"Great days and glorious victory! My name is Spifflemnonk and welcome back to Subnautica!"
Spiffle looks visibly stronger, his usual lanky appearance now looking like he's been working out like a Gym Bro. One can see muscles on muscles and Spiff seems to have an abnormal amount of energy.
"I am now relaxed. It is now time to get eaten by giant scary sea monsters. And yes, before you ask, I have successfully finished fully soundproofing my office. And also yes, I am indeed expecting a new addition to the brood... THANKS DAMN HUMANS! You and your damn musical magic nonsense..."
Spiffle starts the game and is swimming outside the pod next to the Seamoth. The first thing he does is repair the seamoth from the damage incurred by the Reaper, and recounts what hes been up to, checking inventory and equipment. He heads to the radio and gets a new transmission.
RADIO - "This is Avery Quinn of trading ship Sunbeam. Aurora, do you read? Over.'
'Nothing but vacuum. These Alterra ships. They run low on engine grease, they send an SOS; you offer to help, they don't pick up.'
'Aurora, we're out on the far side of the system, it's going to take more than a week to reach your position, do you still need our assistance? Over.'
'I'll try them again tomorrow. Damn charter's going to have us wasting our profit margin running errands for Alterra.'
'See what the long-range scanner picks up in the meantime."
"Oh? Oh lovely! There ARE people in this game! I wonder when they will be here? Meh, I have things to build, so I'll keep an eye."
Spiffle resolves himself to start building a base, trying to find a good spot. He finds the Mushroom Forest Biome and starts gathering resources to ferry them around. He installs the Depth Module and the Storage module to the Seamoth, then builds the Moon Pool. The Mushroom Biome becomes one of his favorite spots and a close encounter with a JellyRay cements it.
"Those creatures are beautiful! Look! JellyRay! Its glowing blue and pretty! I love that! Oh... I have a new radio message. I need to listen to that then."
Spiff returns to the pod and listens to the message.
RADIO - "Aurora, this is Sunbeam again. We just picked up a massive debris field at your location.'
'I didn't know how bad... How many of you... I didn't know.'
'We are now en route to your location. We're going to bring you home. Sunbeam out.'
'What else can I say? The only time I parked a rig this big on a rock that small was in VR, and I blew it'
'Oh, it's a bad option alright, but so are all the others."
Spiff smiles and carries on working, parking the Seamoth inside after powering everything up.
"So lovely! But... Is that a win condition? I know human games by now I have played enough of them. Is that a win condition? Get rescued? I dunno..."
Spiffle carries on building for a little and gets a storage system up, spending a few in-game days transporting resources to his new base. He returned to the pod and played a new radio message, again from the Sunbeam.
RADIO - "This is Sunbeam. Y'know, Aurora, we're from a little trans-gov on the far side of Andromeda, and we have a saying there.'
'There's no bad without the good, no good without the bad.'
'Sounds like you tasted a bunch of the former, but that only means you're overdue a whole lot of the latter.'
'Might just be we're it.'
'We're scanning for somewhere to park, we'll be in touch when we find it. Sunbeam out."
"Ohh... That... that's a lovely saying! What was that uh... There's no bad without the good, no good without the bad. I like that! I think i'll have that framed on my wall! Now lets see.. i ca- I CAN GIVE THE SEAMOTH A NAME? OOHHHhh okay, okay.. I can customize the color too! I think I'll just do this..."
Spiff leaves the name as 'Seamoth' for now, changing the color to a mix of purple for the main, and blue for the trim and name color. His two favorite colors. Spiffle does a little more work, acquiring the last fragments for the Cyclops and starts gathering together the resources necessary to build it.
"Hmmm.. Cyclops... Personal large scale submarine capable of carrying other vehicles! Ooohhh I want to build that! I need to fetch the Vehicle Bay though. Im almost done moving house!"
Spiff returns and packs up the last of his resources, then gets another radio message.
RADIO - "Aurora, we're approaching the planet now, and we have a landing site for you that's... well, it's better than the alternatives.'
'We've sent you the coordinates.'
'It'll take us a couple of days to align our orbit, we should be able to establish direct contact with you during that time, then we're coming in to get you.'
'Cross your fingers the weather holds, and don't leave us waiting. Sunbeam out."
Spiffle gets a new beacon on his HUD. Sunbeam Landing Site.
"What!? Is this game over If I'm there!? Okay... well. At least it's no longer terrifying! I'll get the Seamoth and go for the beacon then. I hope it's okay... Strange... this... doesn't feel like the end, you know? But if it is then it is."
Spiff heads home, deploys the Vehicle Bay and deposits his gear and resources. He heads towards the location, occasionally squealing 'WHEEE!!' as he uses the Seamoth to jump out of the water like a dolphin. However, he miscalculates and the Seamoth jumps up, out and sustains a bit of damage as it hits a rock formation close to the surface. He gets out, repairs it and looks at the camera.
"Why no I didn't just damage my Seamoth by having too much fun. I don't know what you are talking about. Hehe."
Spiffle smirks at the camera with a glare and carries on. Eventually, he encounters the largest of the Islands in the world.
"Wh... WHAT. This has been here the whole time!? Is this an island? Who cares! LAND! Sweet land!"
Spiffle now notices the timer and hops onto the island from his Seamoth. He walks up to the landing zone and stops dead in his tracks at the sight of the massive al;ien structure known as the Quarantine Enforcement Platform. In essence, a giant alien cannon.
"What... the *beep* is THAT?"
Spiffles' editing has gotten better, his editor learning how to censor Spiffles foul language, in both English AND Eridani. He moves closer to the building, scanning the broken tablet and the Forcefield Controls.
"What is this? I mean it's clearly alien... What do the codex entries say... 'possible to reconstruct the device' Oh... hmm.. I can make more of these then. 'Matches no known technologies... functions like a lock'. Okay then so... Standard video game logic I guess. That's nice! So A purple tablet will unlock the gate there. What are those?"
Spiff moves towards the Cairns marking the way into the island, pathways leading up the mountainside. He follows them, finding a Purple Tablet in the process on one of the pathways.
"Oh! Lovely! That saves me resources and a trip I guess. This pathway keeps going though. hmm... Welp, we still have thirty minutes, so let's go."
Spiff explores the pathway, getting lost a bit before finally figuring that following the large cables is a good idea. He comes across the Teleportation Arch and scans it, in between dodging the Cave Crawlers.
"Right, let's see... Alien Arch... not much to speak of here. Maybe this thing will be useful later I guess. Likely.... Hmmm..."
Spiffle continues exploring and eventually finds himself back at the forcefield with another twenty minutes to go.
"Screw it, let's go."
Spiff activates the forcefield platform and the animation of the key being placed plays out. He moves into the building, activating both data platforms and acquiring two Ion Cubes for later, scanning everything he thinks he can scan. He enters the Moonpool in the bay and gets two more Ion Cubes, plus data on a rifle and a Doomsday Device. He ignores it for now, acquiring one more purple tablet and accessing the control room.
"Right... what's in here? Hmm... Energy Core, right. I shall scan that and... press button?"
Spiff presses the button. An animation plays where a device locks his characters hand in place, viciously stabs it with a pointy metal bit and then releases it.
"OH GODS what the hell! Why is that?! That's just nasty!"
"THE TERMINAL IS BROADCASTING A MESSAGE. TRANSLATION READS: 'Warning, infected individuals may not disable the weapon. This planet is under quarantine.'"
"Quarantine! What? Infected? I-Hold on...."
Spiffle gets his scanner out and performs a self-scan. It is only now he notices something very bad has happened.
"I-infected!? Wait, what!?"
"SELF-SCAN COMPLETE - DETECTING STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT BACTERIAL LEVELS. NO ADVERSE EFFECTS DETECTED. BE VIGILANT FOR SYMPTOMS."
"Oh brilliant! Does that mean I can't leave? I KNEW IT! Wait... weapon!? This is a weapon!?"
Spiffle panics and runs out of the facility as fast as he can and waits the last few minutes for the Sunbeam to arrive. Sure enough, it does. In the last 30 seconds, the Sunbeam plays a message.
RADIO - "Survivor, we see you!
'Man, I don't know how you held out down there.'
The sunbeams message plays, and Spiffle gasps in terror from the sound of the gun platform starting up and starting to move around.
RADIO - "We've broken atmosphere and we're descending towards the landing site.'
'Is that a building down there?! What do you mean you can't identify it?"
The weapon powers up and turns, aiming itself high at the sky.
RADIO - "Hold on, no turning back now.'
'Positions everyone, touching down in 10, 9, 8-'
The weapon charges up and a loud vicious hum can be heard echoing through the valley.
RADIO - "It's coming from the building?! Change course, set thrusters to (full)-"
The radio goes to static, the weapon fires and the Sunbeam is vaporized instantly by a massive blast of bright green light. The sunbeam disappears, its hull structure completely disintegrated. Spiffle sits in stunned silence as the platform returns to a stable position, shuts down, and everything goes quiet.
"Well... Okay then... That was... horrifying. I guess thats all we have time for! Hehe! Oh dear..."
Spiffle looks a bit defeated as he sits back in his seat.
"S-see you next time! I guess... Holy shit..."
Channel Outro plays.
TOP COMMENT: "Are you okay? You seem a little bit too disturbed by that. Its fine though, compared to what happens in the Rise Of The Ancients Mod, this is tame! Lol! I love that mod!"
Spiffles Response: "Please don't make me play that mod..."
((Authors note - due to how bastardingly huge Subnautica is, this will be a multi part series. Other Spiff stories will come inbetween. Hope you enjoy!))

I don't think anyone reads this but I need to vent, any support would be appreciated as I'm struggling daily, hourly.
In August of 2023 I strained my muscles by swimming in a lake with a small current for 3 hours. I just love being in the water. I had pretty bad left sciatica pain couldn't really bend or move the same I was in pain. Probably around a 3 or 4 on a bad day. Then a few weeks later I was getting better, I was at a swimming pool I slipped and fell pretty bad on left side. It felt fine until the next day I was in the worst pain of my life about a 10 I couldn't stand I was on the floor crying. It got better as the day went by I wasn't at a 10 anymore but perhaps a 5.
As the weeks go by I am still in pain still about a 5. I start researching how to ease sciatic pain, I asked the people around me for advise. Turns put sciatic pain is more common than you think. So I started stretching more, and going to see a chiropractor. It was okay didn't seem like it was doing much so in October I go to urgent care because the pain wasn't going away. They did an xray to make sure nothing was broken, gave me a high does of ibuprofen and some muscle relaxers and told me to keep stretching and seeing the chiropractor.
I comply, still in pain until a coworker advised me about trigger point massages. Let me tell you best advise I was ever given. I found an amazing therapist (I still see him today) and it was working! Stretching, chiropractor, and trigger point massage I was at 90% better. I was walking straighter my pain was around a 2 it was looking up! Until I fell again in December, and yes on my same left side.
I was worried I set myself back but it seemed to be okay. I was in a little more pain but that was expected. Little did I know I had a herniated disc that was slowly coming more and more out as the weeks passed.
One morning in January, I woke up with the worst back pain as of I slept on the ground and it was sore. I attempted to get out of bed and the pain I felt was unbearable, a screaming 10 I couldn't stand up my back hurt. My sciatic pain?? Was a ten the second I put weight on my leg, my entire left leg spasmed. It was like a ripping burning and sharp shooting pain all at once going from my lower back all the way to my toes. I couldn't walk I immediately started crying, and then that was my life for the next 3 months. I went to the ER at the start. I was in pain and wanted help but they only treated me as if I was a pill addict. Advised me I only needed tylenol and physical therapy, and refused to give me an MRI. Mind you i was in I was in so much pain my blood pressure was 191/112. I went to physical therapy and the therapist told me flat out, I can't help you you need an mri and most likely surgery. He gave me exercises to do to keep my back muscles from weakening well I let the medical and insurance system take its course. It would be weeks before I could get seen by my primary. So I tried another er, but this time they gave me steriods and it helped with the spasms. I tried a second physical therapist and at least she saw me. She explained to me what my muscles were doing, and she massaged my back for the appointment she advised by muscles are so tight they are pulling my sacrum out of place. So she focused on that, she felt bad for me and gave me a referral for an MRI. She was only able to due to what type of physical therapist she was. Before my appt for my MRI came up I finally saw my primary.
She actually listened to me, gave me pain pills, fmla and apologized to me about the prior physician before her. She ordered a Stat MRI I had an appointment the next day. I want to stress too getting around in my condition was not easy. I started to use a cane to help me keep balance it was so painful to walk you could physically see it in my face, and my body would uncontrollably tremble. Welp after the MRI it turns out I have a medium/large herniated disc. She then gave me a referral to pain and spine. I thought finally answers and something more. This can't last forever.
I started seeing my pain and spine specialist, the appointments always seem fast. I don't really feel like being heard, but I'll give it a chance. He scheduled an appointment for me to receive a steriod injection. He said it should help with all my pain, after it would be like what it was before I got hurt. They told me the injection is the most effective and less likely to have side effects because how it's done. They go in from the side to get as close as possible and use an xray to ensure no complications. They said it's a minimal procedure I couldn't return to work the next day. Well yhe next week I was so incredibly sick I had to miss that week or work. Thank God my mom is here for me. She literally had to force feed me eggs because I was too weak myself. It felt like the flu my head hurt mu body was so sedative everything hurt. I had a fever the whole week. The doctor office had to call me everyday to check up and determine if I should go to the ER. The cherry on top was the fact that the doctor kept denying it was from the shot. He advised me one of the nurses had the flu I must have caught it... and started showing symptoms the same day, right.
After the first week of being sick I started feeling better and my pain was getting better I was walking right again, I was able to sit and for a few hours it was amazing I thought finally. It was short lived however, about 2 weeks then I started getting worse again. The pain just started coming back, my muscles started spasming. The medicine was just a mask there is still something wrong, I started seeing a different physical therapist but all they do is massage me.
I'm scared because the doctor wants me to get another injection, when the first made me so sick.

The next morning, the school was abuzz with panic and confusion as Himiko walked through the front doors. She walked by herself to school that morning, in case Kokichi was mad at her from the day before.
"Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh! What do we do-hoo-hooooo?!" Kazuichi wailed, running around in circles.
"Hm? What's going on?" Kokichi asked.
"Teruteru has disappeared," Gundham answered grimly.
Disappeared? Himiko thought nervously to herself. She glanced at Kokichi out of the corner of her eye.
"When we woke up this mornin' he was just gone!" Akane explained.
"W-We looked...e-everywhere for him, b-but...we couldn't find him," Mikan stammered. Then, she burst into tears. "Where could he beeeee?!"
"Did someone kidnap Mr. Hanamura?!" Hifumi cried.
"No way! There'd be no reason for anyone to do that!" Makoto said.
"Well, gosh! Wherever he is, I hope he's okay," Ibuki said. "Or at least...isn't dead!"
"Who gives a shit if he's dead or not?!" Miu exclaimed. "That's not even important right now!"
"What do you mean, Miu?" Tsumugi asked.
"If Teruteru's gone, who's gonna bake and sell the damn cookies?!" Miu said. Murmurs of concern rippled through the crowd.
"I guess we'll have to do it ourselves, then," Shuichi said.
"Yeah, right!" Kazuichi exclaimed. "That sounds like such a hassle!"
"You don't have to do it if you don't want to," Maki said, rolling her eyes and sighing. "I'm certainly not going to."
"Maki's right," Kaede said. "Besides, I'll volunteer to do it!"
"You will?!" Shuichi exclaimed.
"Mm-hmm! Why don't you join me, Shuichi?" Kaede said. "It'll be fun!"
"Ah, well...okay, I guess," Shuichi mumbled. Then, he smiled at Kaede. "Okay, then, Kaede, I'll try it! Besides, it might be fun!" Kaede wrapped her arms around Shuichi, and gave him a kiss.
"Thanks, Shuichi! You're the best!" she cried. Shuichi blushed.
"Ah, er...yeah...no problem," he said.
"I'll do it, too," Rantaro said. "I used to bake cookies with my sisters. It was a good time, and it'll bring back good memories."
"Would you like me to accompany you, Rantaro?" Kirumi offered.
"Of course!" Rantaro replied. "That'd make it even better, honestly."
"I think I'll volunteer, too!" Mahiru said. "Baking is one of my favorite hobbies outside of photography!"
"Yaaay! Can I help, big sis?" Hiyoko asked.
"Well...okay," Mahiru answered hesitantly. Even though she and Hiyoko were good friends, she didn't particularly enjoy baking with Hiyoko. She was always adding extra ingredients, and licking the spoon when she wasn't supposed to lick it yet.
"Don't worry! I won't lick the spoon this time!" Hiyoko said as if reading Mahiru's mind.
"Well...okay, but...only if you promise," Mahiru said, like a strict older sister.
"Okay, okay...I promise," Hiyoko huffed, like a pouty little sister. Sayaka turned to Hina.
"Hey, Hina, would you like to bake cookies with me?" she asked. Hina gave her a bright smile.
"Yeah!" she said. "Cookies are nowhere near as good as doughnuts, but they're easier to bake and easier to sell!"
"You sure about that?" Fuyuhiko asked. "I'm sure people would choose doughnuts over cookies."
"I'd like for that to be the case, but...I highly doubt that," Hina replied.
"Anyway...I've decided that I wanna sell some cookies, too!" Kokichi chimed in. Everyone looked at him in horror.
"Are you kidding me?! What are you gonna do, poison them?!" Kaito exclaimed.
"Non, non," Kokichi replied. "I have an idea for the perfect cookie that'll sell like hot cakes!"
"And what idea is that, exactly?" Celeste asked.
"Yeeaaahhh..." Kazuichi said, frowning with suspicion.
"Oh? Are you guys curious?" Kokichi asked. "Welp, the only way you're gonna find out is to eat them!"
"I'm not sure I want to," Ryoma said. "After all, curiosity killed the cat."
"Nee-heehee...but cats have nine lives, so you'll be fiiiine!" Kokichi said. "I mean, come on! Curiosity can't be the only thing that kills cats! What cat gets curious nine times?"
"But how can we trust you?" Sakura asked.
"I wanna go on that trip just as much as you guys, so you don't have to worry about me doing anything to the cookies!" Kokichi answered. "I'm gonna do my best to make as much money as everyone else!"
"And you're positive you won't do anything to them?" Gundham asked, narrowing his eyes.
"Yuppers!" Kokichi said with that cheeky grin of his. "And, plus, if I do something wrong to them, you guys are gonna form an angry mob and beat me up! I definitely don't want that!"
"What do you think we are, barbarians?!" Kaito exclaimed. "We'd never do anything like that!"
"Uuuh-huh," Kokichi muttered skeptically, rolling his eyes. "You guys are barbarians just waiting to kill me when you get the chance. If anything, you guys are the untrustworthy ones."
"Us?!" Nekomaru shouted.
"Uh...yeah," Kokichi said. "I bet if you were to find the slightest thing wrong in my cookies, you'd beat me up for it...even if I didn't do anything to them. You'd find a reason to beat me up just so you could get the pleasure of beating me up."
"Wha...We're totally not like that!" Kazuichi cried.
"Kaito is," Kokichi said, giving Kaito a pointed look. "Just ask him. His first response is to punch someone just for making him angry." The others turned to Kaito. Kaito stiffened.

"Well, ah...well, I, uh..." he stammered.
"That is true," Keebo agreed reluctantly.
"And what about Mondo?" Kokichi added. "He's the same way."
"Hey! The hell you includin' me for?!" Mondo growled. Then, he realized that his fists were clenched and loosened them, blushing sheepishly.
"And Maki," Kokichi said, pointing to Maki. "She gets pretty murder-y when you piss her off, too." Maki rolled her eyes and glared at Kokichi.
"Well...not all of us are like that," Mahiru said. "Right, guys?" The others murmured with uncertainty.
"Okay, Kokichi, we will try your cookies, and we will not beat you up or get mad...as long as you do not do anything bad to your cookies," Celeste promised. The others agreed, as well.
"Okie-dokie!" Kokichi said.
"Well, now that we got that out of the way, we might as well get to class!" Taka said. As he said that, the bell for first period rang. Himiko walked off to her locker to grab her books. Her vision suddenly became black by two hands covering her eyes. She turned in surprise to see Kokichi grinning at her.
"Kokichi?!"
"Hahaha, did you see what just happened?" he asked, holding her hand as he walked her to her locker.
"Yeah...you got everyone to agree to buy your cookies," Himiko replied.
"Nee-heehee...man, do I got something for them!" Kokichi said.
"Oh...what is it?" Himiko asked.
"You'll have to wait and seeee!" Kokichi sang. Himiko nodded silently in response. Kokichi tilted his head. "Sooo...why'd you leave home without me?" He playfully swung her hand back and forth. Himiko shrugged.
"No reason," she mumbled, looking away. Kokichi sighed.
"If you're worried that I'm mad at you, Himiko, I'm not," he said. Himiko looked at him.
"You're not?"
"No," Kokichi replied. "I mean...I'm a little disappointed. I really thought it would be a fun idea for you and I to compete against each other. But...since you're my Supreme Lady, I have to respect your decision. I just wish you wouldn't doubt yourself so much, though." Even though Kokichi didn't seem to mind so much that she wouldn't compete against him, Himiko didn't feel any better.
"Oh...okay, then," she mumbled as she removed one of her books from her locker.
"So...wanna hear what happened with Teruteru?" Kokichi asked, deciding to change the subject. Himiko had to admit that she was curious about that.
"What happened to him?"
"Nee-heehee...I had my subordinates kidnap him while he was asleep, then I ordered them to ship him to Rio de Janeiro!" Kokichi explained. "Hahaha...he should be having the time of his life right now!"
"Why do you think that?" Himiko asked. Kokichi grinned impishly at her.
"That place is full of the kind of stuff he's into," he replied with a wink. Himiko smiled and shook her head.
"Nyeh...you're crazy, Kokichi," she said.
"And that's why ya love me, riiight?" Kokichi asked, wiggling his eyebrows. Himiko nodded.
"One of the reasons," she said.
"Yippee! I can sleep well tonight knowing that I'm loved by my Monkey Buns! I wuv you, too, my wittle Supweme Wady!" Kokichi said, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and giving her a kiss on her cheek. He walked her to her first class. "Welp, see you after class, HimiCocoa Bean!"
"Okay, Kokichi," Himiko said. "Bye!" Kokichi waved to her before leaving. Himiko couldn't help but feel sad. Deep down, she also liked the idea of having a friendly competition between her and Kokichi, but she felt that she wouldn't be good enough. She remembered Kokichi feeling disappointed, which stung worse than him being mad at her. All he wanted was for them to have fun, and for her to stop doubting herself. Easier said than done. But could she do it? She was scared to find out, but she couldn't deny that she was also curious. In order to find out, she decided right then and there to take Kokichi up on his offer.
Part Four
After first period ended, Himiko found Kokichi waiting for her outside of her classroom. He grinned as he walked over to her and took her hand in his.
"Hiya, HimiCocoa Bean! Ready for history?" he asked as they began walking.
"Yeah..." Himiko answered faintly. Kokichi waved his hand in front of Himiko's face.
"Earth to Himikooo!" he teased. Himiko blinked at him.
"Nyeh? Oh, sorry, Kokichi," she said.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, it's just that..." Himiko paused and faced Kokichi. "...I've decided to compete against you." Kokichi slowly nodded his head in thought.
"Yeeeaaah...I thought you'd change your mind," he said. "But, I'm serious, Himiko. You really don't have to if you don't want to."
"I know, but...part of me wants to, just to see what would happen," Himiko said. Kokichi began to smile.
"Are you sure?" he asked. Deep down, Himiko admitted that she wasn't entirely sure, but she had to break out of her comfort zone sometime. She took a deep breath.
"I'm sure," she replied.
"Nee-heehee...that didn't sound too convincing," Kokichi teased. Then, he grinned gratefully at her. "But, I appreciate that you've decided to give it a try, Himiko."
"Nyeh...the only problem is that I don't know what type of cookies to bake," Himiko said. "And I'm kinda nervous about using the oven by myself. And I don't even know where I'm going to bake them, since Kirumi and Rantaro will be using the one in the kitchen back home."
"You can use the one at D.I.C.E. headquarters," Kokichi whispered. "That's where I'm gonna be baking my batch of cookies."
"In that case, those cookies are definitely gonna taste funny," Himiko joked.
"Nee-heehee...nice one!" Kokichi said. "And anyway, maybe Three can help you bake the cookies. She loves baking. Ten does, too!"
"Well...that does sound like fun, actually," Himiko admitted with a small smile.
"Riiight?" Kokichi said. "Okie, then! We'll go over there after dinner! How's that sound?"
"That's fine," Himiko answered. "At least I'll have time for a nap when I get home."
***
Later that night after dinner, Kokichi and Himiko sneaked away from Casa V3, and headed over to D.I.C.E. headquarters. Three placed Kokichi's Supreme Leader hat on his head, while Five wrapped his cape around his shoulders.
"Boss, you're here!" Four exclaimed. "Are we going on another heist tonight?"
"Was a heist even scheduled for tonight?" Nine asked.
"No heist tonight, guys," Kokichi said. "Himiko and I came here to bake some cookies!" Three gasped excitedly.
"OH, MY GOSH!! I LOVE COOKIES!! I LOVE BAKING!! I LOVE BAKING COOKIES!! CAN I HELP?!" she cried, bouncing up and down with glee.
"As a matter of fact, Keiko, you and Takehiko get to help the Supreme Lady bake her batch," Kokichi said, gesturing to Himiko.
"Yaaay!" Three said, skipping over to Himiko. She playfully smacked Himiko's arm. "Looks like it's you and me, Supreme Lady!"
"Uh...and me, too!" Ten said, patting his afro proudly. "Don't worry, Supreme Lady! I don't look like it, but I'm actually good at baking!"
"And I can make them look so pretty!" Three added.
"Wait...why are you baking cookies in the first place?" Six asked.
"Does there need to be a reason?" Seven asked in her usual monotone voice. "They're cookies."
"We're trying to raise money for a surprise field trip at school," Kokichi explained. "And to do that, we have to sell cookies."
"A surprise field trip?" Nine asked, raising a brow.
"So...you're going on a field trip, but you don't know when?" Five asked as she filed her nails.
"Nyeh...it's not the when we don't know, it's the where," Himiko explained.
"That's right," Kokichi nodded. "The field trip is next month on the 11th, but the surprise is where we're going."
"So, you could be going to a landfill, and you wouldn't even know?!" Four asked incredulously, throwing his hands up in the air.
"Hey, I didn't come up with the idea, that was the school," Kokichi said with a shrug.
"That's...very strange," Two said, scratching his head.
"Yeah, it's as if your school is being run by a wino," Five agreed. Kokichi and Himiko exchanged knowing smiles and giggled.
"Oh, who cares? They gave you guys a reason to bake cookies, and that's all that matters to me!" Three said. She entangled her arms in Himiko's and Ten's. "So, come on! Let's go to the kitchen, already!"
"Oh, but..." Himiko said, turning back to Kokichi. "Kokichi, do you wanna use the kitchen first?"
"Nah, you go ahead, Monkey Buns," Kokichi said, stroking Himiko's cheek.
"Heh, heh, heh...Monkey Buns," Four snickered to himself. Kokichi raised his eyebrows at him. Four held up his hands defensively. "I didn't say anything." Three dragged Himiko and Ten to the kitchen.
"O-kay! First of all..." she turned to Himiko, twirling a strand from one of her pigtails with curiosity. "...what kind of cookies did you wanna bake, Supreme Lady?"
"Nyeh...I'm not sure, to be honest," Himiko admitted.
"Hm...if you want to sell the right cookies, Supreme Lady, I highly recommend snickerdoodles," Ten suggested. "You can't go wrong with snickerdoodles!"
"Are you sure we shouldn't go with chocolate chip, just to be on the safe side?" Himiko asked. "That's a pretty popular cookie."
"I suppose that is a good point," Ten replied thoughtfully. "Alright, chocolate chip cookies it is, then."
"Ooo! Ooo! Let's bake the soft and chewy kind!" Three exclaimed. "Those are the best!" Ten frowned.
"Really? I think I like mine crunchy," he said. He turned to Himiko. "What do you think, Supreme Lady?"
"Nyeh...maybe we could make a batch of both?" Himiko replied with uncertainty.

"Works for me!" Ten said.
"Ditto!" said Three. "No wonder the boss picked you as his Supreme Lady! You're really smart!" Himiko definitely did not agree with that, but she smiled gratefully at Three nevertheless.
"Nyeh...thanks, Keiko," she replied. Ten pulled out a large bowl for mixing, a tray for setting the cookies on, and the ingredients.
"Well, then...let's get to work," he said. After an hour or so of baking, Kokichi waltzed into the kitchen to check on their progress.
"Sooo...how's it going in here?" he asked, wrapping his arm around Himiko's waist and kissing her cheek.
"Nyeh...we should be done soon," Himiko answered.
"Yup! We'll be done after this last batch in the oven here," Ten added.
"Good, because I really need to get started on my batch," Kokichi said with a devious grin.
"What up with the urgency?" Ten asked.
"Nee-heehee...let's just say that I have a feeling my cookies are gonna be the next hot thing!" Kokichi replied.
"Nyeh?" Himiko mumbled quizzically.
"Can I help you bake them, too, Kokichi? Three asked eagerly.
"Hmm...well, you are good at decorating," Kokichi answered thoughtfully. "That will definitely come in handy! Okay, Keiko, you can help!"
"YES!!" Three shouted. The timer chimed like a clown nose honking, letting Ten know that it was time to remove the cookies from the oven.
"Okie-dokie, boss! Oven's all yours!" he said.
"Excellent," Kokichi replied in a low voice with a devilish grin. Three and Ten placed Himiko's cookies in two large tin bowls with lids, separating the crunchy cookies from the soft ones, and handed them to her.
"There you go, Supreme Lady!" Three said.
"Nyeh...thanks for helping me, you guys," Himiko replied appreciatively. Ten and Three bowed.
"You are very welcome," Ten said.

"I'm glad you got your cookies all baked and ready, HimiCocoa Bean," Kokichi said, placing his hands on Himiko's shoulders. "But...I'm afraid I'll have to ask you to leave the kitchen. Your Supreme Leader has an evil scheme he's been dying to...'cook up' in this kitchen."
"Nyeh...okay, but, you're not gonna put anything super weird in your cookies that'll hurt people, right?" Himiko asked.
"Nee-heehee...of course nooot!" Kokichi replied mischievously. "You know me better than that, Himiko."
"Kokichi..." Himiko warned, raising a brow at him.
"Don't worry, Himiko, I won't hurt anyone," Kokichi promised.
"Well...okay, then," Himiko said. "Continue with your evil plan."
"Thanks, babe," Kokichi said, giving Himiko a kiss. "You can go ahead and wait in the living room while I concoct the perfect, evil cookie." Himiko nodded and joined the other D.I.C.E. members in the living room. Kokichi turned to Three, grinning devilishly. "Keiko, hand me the super spicy cinnamon, please."

Humans weren’t myths per se. They made their way onto about a third of my dossiers, and I was briefed on them during my training into the diplomatic corps. They certainly had a presence in the world. It was just that their presence was… small.
Strangely small.
Dark matter, was the way I always heard it described. They make their own tech, grow their own food, live their own lives. They’re almost always part of the machinations of power, but they’re almost never part of day-to-day life.
And they truly seemed to like it that way.
They’d turned down offers of trade and knowledge exchange. A seat on the cultural council was set aside for them, but they just never showed up. They didn’t want to be understood. They didn’t want to show off their history, their art, their great works. All they wanted was to float in their great ships, living and dying inside closed loops of air, water, and soil. To remain scattered and invisible to all whose lives did not focus around the ebbs and flows of power.
Still this distance was given to them with grace - partly with the hope that if we respected their wishes, they might wish to join willingly, and partly out of simple fear. We sent a probe onto a human craft once, just to witness what their lives were like. Just to learn. Every human that it saw simply disappeared as soon as it lost direct visual contact. With 24 hours, the entire ship was empty, locked down and silent. We sent the probe through every single space in the ship, trying to find where the humans went and never found a clue. It was as if they’d vanished into thin air. After another day of searching, the probe lost contact. The lab that was monitoring it from a quarter million kilometers away, tucked inside a stealth station that barely could see itself, found the probe stuck inside one of their own air vents along with a note.
Don’t, the note said. So we didn’t. Not after that. We gave them as much privacy as they wanted, which was all of it, and they thanked us with the occasional trinket left in an air duct. Memory sticks large enough to store entire planets worth of data, or batteries with enough output to power entire warships. One time, they left a faint yellow stick of carbohydrates and polyfats, wrapped up in a thin plastic sheath.
For eating, the note on it said. Not studying. That one was left on the station where I worked so I got to try a piece.
(It was strangely mediocre.)
They lived such strange, cryptic, distant lives that the idea of them ever wanting to speak with us seemed impossible. Humans, after all, did not use their voices. They didn't do open dialogues. They wrote cryptic notes and stuck them inside air vents, and if you found one and showed respect, they rewarded you with baubles that varied between incomprehensibly advanced god tech, or a little snacky snack. A fucking treat-o.
So you can imagine my surprise when I woke up one morning and there was one standing in the corner of my room.
“Are you busy?” it asked. We knew what they looked like, but it was still a shock to see one in the flesh. It was pink and soft looking, almost non-threatening except for the forward facing eyes and the multi-tool mouth, designed for everything from meat to grain. I was pretty sure the one talking to me was male, but I'd make mistakes before.
I don’t think I actually responded to the question. I might have managed a quiet hrn or a guh, but my prey instincts told me that if I froze it might, maybe, fail to see me. As if my blue-green skin could possibly camouflage into the stark white of my quarters.
“Right,” it said. “Startle reflex. Common to prey species. Sorry about that.”
It's alright I tried to say back. I was able to unlock the muscles in my throat before I actually unclenched my diaphragm, so the phrase came out in one quick, high pitched avalanch.
“Salrite.”
It took a moment for it to parse what I’d said, but to my enormous relief it made no other comment on the outburst.
“Would you like to take a tour of the Earth?” it said, matter of fact. As if it was describing a nearby comissary location, and not one of the galaxy’s best kept secrets.
“Yes,” I replied. I assumed that it meant in say, a day, or an hour, or however long it would take to do things the formal official way. I’d forgotten about the things left in air ducts. I’d forgotten how humans worked.
“Perfect,” it replied while reaching forward. The moment it touched my arm there was a sensation like I was being carried up by the nape of my neck. For one brief moment the world around us disappeared - no walls, no windows, just a flickering collage of stars. My skin burned in a moment of fire and ice alike that stopped abruptly with both of us in a new room. It seemed to have been designed to my sensibilities, even if it wasn't quite like the one in my station. I tried to rack my brain for why it seemed to familiar, and I realized its layout had been copied from the last aparment I'd rented from my planetside days.
It had been almost a decade since then.
"What," I said. It was not a question. It was a statement of existential confusion. I'd been awake for maybe five minutes that day, and the entire time had been spent being confused and terrified. It was like reality had just decided that all rules no longer applied.
"Yeah," the human agreed. There was a genuine depth of feeling to the word. It knew. It sympathized. Both of those facts felt like a lifeline to me.
I looked over at it, hoping for something else to grab ahold of. Some other way to orient myself in this strange, alien realm. It met my gaze, saw the panic bubbling in my blood, and slapped both its hands over its knees.
"Welp," it said. "That's enough talking for one day."
And without another word, it left.
As the panic boiled away inside me, the sane rational center I'd developed in my time as a diplomat made a simple note.
Humans, it decided, can be pretty fucking awkward sometimes.
And it was that thought that kept me from panicking as I awaited more information about my upcoming trip to the Earth.